XI.

The ladder was early missed; indeed it was the next morning that old Corbin puffed and pushed through the laurel to the bare space where his handiwork had been wont to lie and to grow apace, rung by rung. He did not at first notice its absence. He put his box of tools on the ground. Then he sat down on a rock and mopped his brow with his red bandana handkerchief and gazed meditatively down the vistas of the woods. The Indian summer was abroad in the land, suffusing it with languor and light—a subtly tempered radiance; with embellishments of color, soft and brilliant; with fine illusions of purpling haze; with a pensive joy in sheer existence. How gracious it was to breathe such air, such aromatic perfumes; to hear such melodic sounds faintly piped with the wind among the boughs. Ah, summer, not going, surely! for despite the sere leaf one must believe it had barely come.

They were not poetic lungs which Mr. Corbin wore, encased in much fat, but they expanded to the exquisite aroma of the morning as amply as if they differentiated and definitely appreciated it. He drew several long luxurious sighs, and then it seemed as if he would breathe no more. He gasped; turned red; his eyes started from his head. He had taken notice at last that the ladder had been removed. He arose tremulously and approached the spot where it usually lay. There was no trace of it. He staggered a few steps backward in dismayed recoil. His spectacles fell to the ground, the lenses shattering on the stones.

“Witches!” he spluttered. “Witches!” He cast one terrified appealing look at the solitudes about him, half-fearing to see the mystic beings that his superstition deemed lurking there; then he began to waddle—for he could hardly be said to run—as fast as he could go along the path through the laurel.

Tremulous alike with his years and the shock of surprise, his condition was pitiable by the time he reached the store—for he at once sought his friend and crony the storekeeper. And some time elapsed before he could be restored to his normal calmness and make intelligible the detail of what had befallen him. Peter Sawyer was a man of considerable acumen. He was far more disposed to believe that the ladder had been found by some freakish boys who had mischievously hidden it in the laurel hard by, than that it had been spirited away by witches. He considered, however, that his old friend had been victimized beyond the limits of fun, and before setting out for the spot he summoned the constable of the district to their aid, for he felt that arrests for malicious mischief were in order. Both he and the officer were prepared to beat the laurel and patrol the neighborhood and ferret out the miscreants. They arranged their plans as they trudged on together, now and then pausing to wait for old Corbin as he pounded along behind them. The storekeeper was detailing, too, to the constable the reasons for the manufacture of the long ladder—for he was the confidential friend of Jake Corbin, and in fact had suggested the scheme.

“We mought ez well let ye inter the secret fus’ ez las’, kase this hyar case air one fur the strong arm o’ the law.” He threw back his narrow lizard-like head and laughed, showing his closely-set tobacco-stained teeth.

“Strong ez it air ’tain’t plumb long enough!” he added.

The constable, a thick-set, slow man, cocked his head inquiringly askew.

“’Tain’t long enough,” continued Sawyer, enjoying the involutions of the method of disclosure he had adopted. “The arm o’ the law ain’t long enough ter reach up ter them hollows in Keedon Bluffs!”

“In Keedon Bluffs!” echoed the amazed officer.

“Jes’ so,” said Sawyer, laughing and nodding. “So we hev lengthened its reach by the loan of a ladder.” He strode on silently for a few moments beside the constable, their two shadows following them down the red clay road, in advance of old Corbin, who was lumbering on behind attended by a portly, swaying, lunging image of himself, impudently magnified and nearly twice as big.

“Ye see,” resumed Sawyer, “Jake Corbin b’lieves ez some o’ old Squair Torbett’s money an’ sech, what he hid in the war times, air right up _yander_ in one o’ them holes—’twar this hyar Jerry Binwell, ez war a slim boy then, an’ Ab Guyther ez holped ter hide it. Waal, ye know how things turned out. The Squair died ’fore many months were over an’ them boys had run away to the Wars. Waal, ye know how cur’ous the heirs acted—looked sorter sideways when questioned, an’ swore they never hed hed no money out’n Keedon Bluffs.”

“I ’member,” said the constable, “Ed declared out he never b’lieved thar war no money thar.”

“Waal, Ed’s dead, an’ the tother heir moved ter Arkansas, an’ the kentry-side ginerally b’lieved like them—that thar warn’t no money thar—big fool tale. Waal, hyar kems back Jerry Binwell, arter twenty year, bein’ pore ez Job’s tur-r-key, an’ takes ter a-loafin’ roun’ them Bluffs; I seen him thar twict myself. An’ Ab Guyther hev tuk ter declarin’ he wants ter climb down Keedon Bluffs an’ lay his hand on that thar old cannon-ball.”

“Wants ter lay his hand on Squair’s old money-box, ye better say,” exclaimed Corbin.

“Waal now, I ain’t goin’ ter b’lieve nuthin’ ag’in Ab!” exclaimed the constable excitedly.

“Ennyhow,” wheezed old man Corbin, “we-uns ’lowed we’d git a ladder an’ summons a officer an’ take down that box, ef we could git a boy ter climb in, an’ turn it over ter the law. Jerry Binwell ain’t done nuthin’ ez yit ter warrant arrestin’ him, but we jes’ ’lowed we-uns warn’t a-goin ter set by an’ let him put folks on beams an’ steal money, an’ loaf around ef thar war enny way ter pervent it.”

The constable seemed to approve of the plan, and only muttered a stipulation that he did not believe Ab had anything to do with any rascality.

Little was said as they pushed through the tangle of the laurel. The storekeeper was ahead, leading the way, for he knew it well, having often come to consult his crony. “Waal, sir!” he exclaimed in indignant ruefulness when the bare rocky space was revealed along which the great ladder was wont to stretch. He glanced around excitedly at the constable, directing his attention to the spot, then called aloud, “Why, Jake,” in a voice of exasperated compassion.

A cold chill was upon old Corbin as he waddled through the last of the tangled bushes; it required no slight nerve for him to again approach the place. He quivered from head to foot and wailed forth tumultuously, “I hev been snared by the witches. Le’s git out’n these hyar witched woods! Don’t ye reckon ’twar the witches? It mus’ hev been the witches!”

A new idea suddenly struck Peter Sawyer. “’Twarn’t no witches,” he declared abruptly. “An’ ’twarn’t no mischievous boys! ’Twar Jerry Binwell; that’s who hev got that ladder. Ef we-uns could ketch him a-nigh hyar I’d git him ’rested sure. He hev fund out what we air wantin’ ter do.”

“Better find the ladder an’ git the box fust. We-uns don’t want him—a rascal—ez much ez the law wants the Squair’s money-box ter gin it back ter the heirs,” said the cautious constable. “Go slow an’ sure. Besides I don’t wanter make no foolish arrests. The jestice would jes’ discharge him on sech evidence ag’in him ez we kin show—kase we can’t tell all we know,—fur the word would git all over the Cove, an’ some limber-legged fellow mought climb up thar, an’ ef he didn’t break his neck he mought git the box. I tell ye—I’m a-goin’ ter set a watch on them Bluffs from day-dawn till it’s cleverly dark. An’ ef that thar ladder be in these hyar woods I’ll find it.”

These wise counsels were heeded. Old Corbin started back to the store with his friend after one more apprehensive, tremulous, and searching glance for the witches’ lair in the laurel which he dreaded to discover, and the constable took his way cautiously through the woods toward the river.

The morning wore on to the vertical noontide when the breeze died, and the shadows collapsed, and the slumberous purple haze could neither shift nor shimmer, but brooded motionless over the ravines and along the mountain slopes; the midday glowed, and burned with color more richly still, until the vermilion climax of the sunset made splendid the west, and tinged the east with gold and pink reflections. And all day the constable himself, hidden in a clump of crimson sour-wood, knelt on the summit of the Bluffs, watching the deep silent gliding of the river and the great sand-stone cliffs—with here a tuft of grass or a hardy bush in a niche, with sheer reaches and anon crevices, and on a ledge the ball from the deadly gun, lying silent and motionless in the sun.

Nothing came except a bird that perched on the cannon-ball; a mocking-bird, all newly plumed. He trimmed his jaunty wing, and turned his brilliant eye and his delicately poised head upward. Then, with his white wing-feathers catching the light, away he went to where the echoes awaited him. A star was in the river—its silver glitter striking through the roseate reflections of the clouds; and presently the darkness slipped down.

And the constable’s joints were very stiff when he clambered out of the clump of sour-wood shoots.