IV.

The next morning Ike woke with an odd, heavy sense of having sustained some serious misfortune, and it was several moments before he could identify it; when he did, he was amazed to find it only his intuitive distrust of the stranger’s presence here, and an aversion to its continuance. He upbraided himself in the same instant for the inhospitable thought. “Hyar I be, actially a-grudgin’ the houseless ones a shelter from the yellimints,” he said in shame.

He was disappointed, however, to observe that after breakfast there was no sign of an impending departure; Jerry Binwell easily adapted himself to the domestic routine and smoked and lounged before the fire, or strolled lazily about the yard. Ike thought, for all he so readily made himself at home, that his sordid, weak, sly face looked strangely alien and out of place among the sterling, honest, candid countenances of the family circle. So ill at ease did Ike feel with this vague anxiety that he was glad enough when his mother bethought herself that she needed logwood from the store. Mounted on the old gray mare he set out on this errand, feeling liberated in a measure, riding against the fresh wind that seemed to blow away the vexing distemper of his thoughts.

The rain had revivified the world; everything seemed made anew. The colors were so luminously clear; how splendidly the maples deployed down the mountain side, with red and amber and purple gleams; every needle of the pines was tipped with a rain-drop, prismatically glittering. Mists rose from the intermediate valleys between the ranges, and folded their wings for a space, dallying on the summit, and then, drawn sunwards, lifted with silent ethereal grace into the soft blue sky. How lofty the mountains seemed to-day—how purple! Even the red mud beneath his mare’s hoofs had depths of rich ocherous tints, restful to the eye. It splashed monotonously under the steady jogging tread, so muffled that a squirrel, nimbly speeding along the topmost rail of the wayside fence, had no thought of an approach, and seemed a fellow-traveler; a swift one!—the old mare is soon far behind. And now the river is crossed, swollen by the rain and of a clay-color, instead of its wonted limpid silvery tint, and deep enough in the middle to make the old mare flounder to the girth and then unwillingly swim, while Ike gathers himself on his knees on the saddle to keep out of the cold water. And now up the rocky bank in the deep shadowy woods,—where there is no fence on either side of the road, which seems merely a vagrant wheel-track here and there in the mud, covered with the yellow and red and brown fallen leaves—and all the bosky vistas are full of richest color. Everywhere the giant trees close thickly in—no sign of mountains now, save the tonic balsamic air in proof of the altitudes. Only the pines and cedars and the jungles of the laurel are green, and green they will be all winter. Hear that! a fox barks in that dense tangle—are the frost grapes ripe, old Crafty? And suddenly between a scarlet oak and a yellow hickory a section of purple mountain shows, a floating capricious sprite-like mist slips in and out of sight, and there at the base of the range is the little store—a low white-washed shanty of one room; further up the slope in the clearing a gray log-cabin stands where Skimpy Sawyer lives.

Skimpy’s father kept the store, in a leisurely and unexcited fashion—indeed many people might have considered that the store kept itself. As Ike dismounted and hitched the mare to the fence, he gave a peculiar whistle, a preconcerted signal, loud and shrill enough to summon his friend if he had been anywhere in the vicinity. No one responded, and Ike took his way to the open door of the store.

He had a certain pleasant anticipation; here congregated the mountain cronies, and he loved to listen to their talk enriched with warlike reminiscences, through which vibrated, as it were, some faint and far-off echo of the strain of the bugle and the roll of the drum.

His hopes were suddenly destroyed. As he ascended the three or four unhewn rocks that formed the steps to the door, he heard the long, expressionless drawl of the storekeeper within, and then a fat man’s husky laugh. Ike started guiltily at the sound. But the broad sunshine had thrown a squatty shadow of him upon the floor within, and he knew that this caricature was recognized, for the voice sang out suddenly—“Ai—yi Ike; I see ye! Needn’t be hidin’! I’ll kem arter ye!”

Then as the boy, shamefaced and a little lowering, appeared in the doorway, he continued, “Whar’s that buckeye tree ye war a-goin’ ter cut down fur me so brash?”

“I plumb furgot it,” mumbled Ike, as if his contrition were more acceptable when half articulate. “I furgot it, Mr. Corbin.”

“I’ll be bound ye did!” said the fat man vivaciously.

He was seated in one of the rickety chairs which hardly seemed adequate to his weight. He wore an unbleached cotton shirt, a suit of blue jeans much creased and crumpled, and a broad-brimmed hat, beneath which was a face also creased and crumpled. He was slow and inactive rather than old, and a man of his age who had lived a different life would hardly have such gray hair as his, or so many wrinkles. Nevertheless he had not entirely subsided into the chimney corner as is the habit of the elderly mountaineer. He still plied his trade which was that of making spinning-wheels and chairs, bread troughs and bowls, which require mechanical dexterity rather than agility; thus it was that he had hired Ike to find and cut down a sound and stalwart buckeye suitable for his purposes, his own unwieldy bulk and sedentary habits making him averse to undertaking the job himself.

Peter Sawyer, the storekeeper, was tall and lank. He had a long head, an attenuated face, and a habit of basking in the sun, which was not incongruous with a certain lizard-like aspect. He sat now with his chair tilted against the frame of the doorway, and the sunshine poured through upon him. He too wore his hat, and did not move while one of his customers counted some pelts that he had brought to exchange and announced the result. “Want some sugar an’ salt fur ’em?” demanded the merchant lazily. “He’p yerse’f, neighbor; he’p yerse’f.”

The neighbor, who lived on the other side of the mountain, pottered around among the merchandise in search of the sugar and salt, attended only by the storekeeper’s dog, an earnest-minded and grave-mannered brute, that guarded the store by night and seemed to clerk there by day, following the customers about with sedulous politeness, and apparently only hindered from waiting upon them by the lack of adaptability in his paws. His urbanity did not extend to their followers. He measured strength with all the dogs that came to the store. It was useless for any pacifically disposed hound to sit under the wagon bed at a safe distance. The clerk would rush out with a celerity that implied a hundred feet, and the fracas under the wagon would be long and loud and bloody. But he had not all the canine pluck in the Big Smoky, and thus it was that one of his ears was slit, and he preferred to shut one eye, and his tail was but a stump. He turned wagging it vivaciously as Ike came in, and the storekeeper, regardless of old Corbin’s reproofs, said benignantly, “Howdy, Ike, howdy? Make yerse’f at home. How’s the fambly, Ike, how’s the fambly?”

“Jes’ toler’ble,” said Ike, taking a rickety chair near the door.

“Uncle Ab ez well ez common?” demanded the customer, still hunting about for the salt. He was a tall, straight, soldierly fellow, and though he had fought on the opposite side he felt a comrade-like sympathy for the blinded artillery-man.

“He be jes’ ez peart ez ever—jes’ a-settin’-back,” said Ike, with responsive interest. He had great love for his uncle and a special veneration for a man so learned as he fancied Abner Guyther to be in the science of gunnery. “He air jes’ ez lively ez a three-year-old colt.”

“Ain’t he a heap o’ trouble ter lead about an’ sech?” demanded old Corbin, turning his crow’s-feet—one could hardly have said his glance, for it was so deeply enveloped among the folds of wrinkles—upon Ike.

“Naw sir!” the boy repudiated the idea with a glowing cheek and a flashing eye. “Uncle Ab air sech good comp’ny everybody in the fambly jes’ hankers ter bide nigh him; the identical dogs fight one another fur which one air ter be ’lowed ter lead him—sometimes ef we-uns air busy he walks with a string ter the dog’s neck. Shucks! the main thing air to _git_ ter lead him—jes’ ez apt ez not uncle Ab will set out by his lone self. An’ he don’t often run over ennything—he ’pears ter hev a heap o’ sense in his hands, an’ he knows whenst he air a-comin’ towards ennything like a door or post, though he’ll walk ag’in cheers or tubs or sech. ’Tother day—ye mought hev knocked me down I war so surprised—I kem along the road ’bout a quarter o’ a mile from home, an’ thar sot uncle Ab a-top o’ the rail fence—jes’ a-settin’ thar in the sun all alone an’ a-whistlin’ the bugle calls.”

“Ho! ho!” exclaimed the customer, “he always hed spunk,—Abner hed; an’ he air a-showin’ it now, jes’ ez true ez when he sarved in his battery.”

“Yes, sir!” exclaimed Ike, gratified by this sign of appreciation. Then warming to the subject he continued, “Uncle Ab ain’t ’feared o’ nuthin’—not even now, in the everlastin’ dark ez he be. Why, ’tother day I see a old cannon-ball a-layin’ on a ledge over yander at Keedon Bluffs, an’ when he learn ’bout’n it he war plumb trembly, he war so excited, an’ he ’lowed he’d go ef I’d holp him a leetle, an’ climb down them tremenjious cluffs, jes’ ter lay his hand on that cannon-ball, ter remind hisself o’ that thar old gun o’ his’n, what he doted on so. It fairly bruk his heart ter spike it. I hev heard him tell ’bout’n it a-many-a-time.”

“Hey!” exclaimed Peter Sawyer, turning about in amaze, “a blind man climb down Keedon Bluffs! ’Twould take a mighty spry feller with all his senses fur that. I misdoubts ef ennybody hev ever done sech ez that—thout ’twar Ab whenst he war young an’ limber, an’ wild ez a buck.”

Ike had become suddenly conscious that old Corbin was watching him curiously.

“He don’t ’pear ter know he air blind, do he?” demanded the fat man, slowly.

Ike detected some covert meaning in the tones. “Waal,” he said, vaguely embarrassed and swinging his foot against the rung of the chair, “Uncle Ab—he jes’ sets an’ laffs, an’ talks ’bout whar he hev been an’ what him an’ his comrades done, an’ he don’t notice much what’s goin’ on now, nor look out fur nuthin’ ez is ter kem.”

“He ain’t soured noways,” put in the customer, still intent on his purchase.

There was a momentary silence. The flies buzzed about the sorghum barrel. You might have heard the cat purring on the shelf.

“This hyar ’bout fair medjure, Pete?” the customer demanded lifting his grave eyes as he helped himself to salt.

“I reckon so; I reckon so,” said the storekeeper casually.

Ike rose abruptly in awkward and eager haste; in a constrained and nervous way he asked for the logwood he wanted. His quick instincts had detected fault in something that he had said or the meaning that he had conveyed. But his penetration was not so subtle as to descry wherein the fault consisted. He was eager to get away. “’Fore I let my jaw git ter wabblin’ ag’in. An’ then I hed better cut off the e-end o’ my tongue with a hatchet an’ mebbe it wouldn’t be so powerful nimble.”

He expected old Corbin to say more, but the fat man sat solemnly puffing his pipe, his face more than usually wrinkled, as he watched Ike with his small twinkling eyes while Peter Sawyer procured the logwood and gave it to the boy.

With some indefinite intention of propitiation Ike turned toward him at the door. “I hev been toler’ble busy lately, but I’m a-goin’ ter cut down that thar tree this evening, sure.”

“So do! So do!” assented old Corbin unreservedly. “Then I’ll gin ye that thar rooster I war a-tellin’ ye ’bout. Powerful spry Dominicky.”

Ike looked back over his shoulder once as he trotted off on the old white mare. The storekeeper and his clerk were standing in the doorway; the ex-soldier had completed his purchases, and was riding off toward the mountain; old Corbin was visible sitting within the door, a hand on either knee, his eyes meditatively downcast. He solemnly shook his head as he cogitated, and Ike was moved to wonder what he meant by it. “I wisht I hedn’t tole what uncle Ab say ’bout climbin’ down them bluffs. They ’pear ter think it be so cur’ous.”

And it was of Abner Guyther that the two gossips were talking as Ike rode away out of sight.

“That be a powerful strange thing fur Abner ter be a-sayin’,” remarked the storekeeper presently.

Old Corbin shook his head with a wise look; a wise smile wrinkled about the corners of his mouth.

“In my opinion _he_ ain’t no blind man. He kin see _some_, mebbe more, mebbe less. He air jes’ purtendin’. Set up thar an’ laff an’ joke ez spry ez a boy o’ twenty, an’ talk ’bout climbin’ down the bluffs—an’ tell me he ain’t hed his vision for all these years! I know Abner!”

“What makes ye ’low sech ez that, Jake?” demanded his crony, fairly startled out of his composure by this proposition.

“Kase Abner always war a ’sateful an’ a plottin’ boy—look at the way he fooled his folks when he run off ter jine the Secesh! I ain’t furgittin’ that. An sure’s ye air born thar’s suthin’ behind all them thar shet eyeballs. Abner, he hain’t quit his plannin’ an’ sech. He hev got his reason fur it. It’s slow a-showin’. But it’ll be made plain.”

The storekeeper puffed his cob-pipe, and silently watched the blue wreaths curl from it. He did not enter readily into this opinion, for he was a man of the practical views natural to those who associate much with their fellows. Despite the sparse population of the district he had a pivotal participation in such life as there was on the slopes and in the cove, for it revolved about the store. But Corbin spent his days in mere mechanical labor that left his mind free to wander. Thus speculation and vague fancies were his companions, and there was scant wonder that he should presently treat them as conclusions and facts.

In silent anticipation of the elucidation of the singular theory advanced, Peter Sawyer drew from his pocket a strong clasp knife and began to whittle a bit of wood which he picked up from the doorstep. But old Corbin’s next remark seemed to have no relation to the subject.

“Who d’ye reckon I seen yestiddy up yander by that thar big vine-grown spot what they calls Old Scratch’s vineyard?”

Pete Sawyer looked inquiringly doubtful, but silently puffed his pipe.

“_Jerry Binwell!_”

Old Corbin paused after he said this, smiling broadly and fixedly—all the wrinkles about his mouth and eyes seemed to come out as if to enjoy the sensation that this announcement occasioned.

The storekeeper stared blankly for a moment, then dropped his pipe upon the ground. The fire rolled out.

“Laws-a-massy!” he exclaimed, unheeding.

“Yes, sir! same old Jerry; the wuss fur wear; some _de_-lapidated; but—same old Jerry!”

“I ’lowed he war in Texas; folks said he went thar arter the war.”

“I hailed him; he purtended not ter know me a-fust, an’ he stopped, an’ we talked awhile. He ’lowed he had never been ter Texas. Jes’ down the kentry a piece in Persimmon Cove. I dunno whether he war tellin’ the truth.”

“I reckon he war,” said the storekeeper. “It air a mighty out-o’-the-way place—Persimmon Cove; Satan hisself mought hid out in Persimmon an’ folks in gineral never be the wiser ez the Enemy war enny nigher.”

“He ’lowed he married thar,” continued Corbin. “An’ what d’ye reckon he hed along o’ him?”

He looked at his crony with a broad grin.

“A—leetle gal! Thar they war a-travelin’ along the slope. Hed a leetle ox-cart an’ a steer geared up in it; he hed a cow critter too; calf followed; an’ sech cheers an’ house-stuff ez he owned piled in the cart, an’ settin’ a-top o’ it all this hyar leetle gal—’bout ez big ez a shingle. She rid, bein’ ez she hain’t got no weight sca’cely.”

“An’ whar’s the ’oman?” asked the storekeeper, missing an important factor in the family circle.

Corbin lowered his voice and his humorous wrinkles strove to retire themselves.

“Dead,” he said gravely.

Peter Sawyer, bethinking himself of his pipe, filled it anew with a crumpled leaf of tobacco, relighted it, and with the pipe-stem between his teeth resumed the conversation.

“An’ what sorter welcome do he reckon he air goin’ ter find ’mongst the mountings hyar. Do he ’low we hev furgot his sheer in the war, kase it hev been right smart time since? Naw sir. I ’members like yestiddy whenst old Jeemes Guyther—Abner’s dad, ye know—kem ter my store, lookin’ ez ef he hed buried all his kin on yearth, an’ tole ez Abner hed run off ter jine the Secesh along o’ Jerry Binwell. An’ the old man said he hoped Ab mought die afore he reached the Rebel lines, kase he’d ruther mourn him dead ’n know he hed raised his hand ag’in the Nunion.”

“But he wouldn’t, though,” said Corbin prosaically. “Them war days when men talked mighty big.”

“An’ they acted mighty big too, sometimes,” retorted Sawyer.

“Waal, Abner war the apple o’ the old man’s eye,” said Corbin; “I b’lieve he’d turn in his grave ef he could know how Ab war hurt. The whole fambly jes’ the same, too. Look how Ab air pompered now. Ef Abner war blind sure enough he couldn’t be better treated. His dad always put the blame o’ Ab’s goin’ on Jerry. An’ Jerry war a wuthless chance! He kem back inside o’ a year—deserted! But Ab never kem back till arter the s’render.”

“What makes ye ’low ez Abner hev got his vision same ez common?” Sawyer demanded again. “That notion ’pears powerful cur’ous ter me—seein’ him led about hyar fur nigh on ter twenty year, now by Ike, an’ now by his brother, an’ then ag’in by a dog an’ sech.”

Old Corbin looked cautiously over his shoulder through the open door as if he feared some lurking eaves-dropper. The cabin on the slope stood silent and motionless in the motionless yellow radiance of the autumnal sun. But the winds were astir, and as they swayed the woods they revealed bizarre sunbeams rioting hither and thither in glittering fantasies among the leaves. No one sauntered down the curves of the winding road nor along the banks of the shining river. The only creature visible was the old dog asleep, but sitting upright, in a dislocated posture, his head nodding spasmodically, and his lower jaw dropped.

“Ye hearn,” said Corbin softly, “that thar nevy o’ his, Ike Guyther, ’low Ab want ter climb down Keedon Bluffs ter whar that old ball’s a-lyin’. Now do ye reckon a _blind_ man ez hev got good sense air goin’ ter trest his bones a-gittin’ down that jagged bluff ez sheer ez a wall with sech holp ez that thar skitter-brained Ike kin gin?”

Sawyer, holding his pipe in one hand and his grizzled chin in the other, meditatively shook his head.

“Naw sir,” said Corbin, putting the gesture into the more stalwart negation of words. “A man, though, ez hed his vision, though his j’ints be stiff some with age and laziness, mought do it, special ef he hed the holp o’ some strong spry boy like Ike, ez be astonishin’ grown fur his age, but ain’t got no mo’ sense an’ scrimination than a boy naterally hev.”

Once more Peter Sawyer nodded his head—this time the action was vertical, for the gesture intimated affirmation.

“What in the name o’ reason do Abner want ter go down whar the old ball be lodged?” he asked in a speculative voice, as if he hardly expected an answer.

But the ready Corbin, primed with surmises, first looked cautiously up and down the road and then ventured a suggestion.

“Waal, sir; seein’ Jerry Binwell minded me o’ Abner Guyther, an’ how they used ter consort together, an’ thinkin’ o’ Ab ’minded me o’ the store old Squair Torbett used ter set on him. Ab war mighty nigh always at the Squair’s house a-doin’ some leetle job or other, special arter the Squair tuk ter agein’ so through worryin’ ’bout the war an’ his sons ez war in the army. An’ Jerry Binwell war at the Squair’s too, bein’ Ab’s shadder. Waal, ye know the Squair hed a power o’ money, an’ he hed drawed it out’n the banks in the valley towns, ’count o’ the raidin’ soldiers an’ sech. An’ he hid it somehows. Some ’lowed he buried it, but most folks said he let these hyar two boys inter the secret, an’ Ab clomb down an’ hid the money in a strong box in a hole in Keedon Bluffs, whilst Jerry watched. Ye hev hearn that word? Waal, sir, the Bluffs air like a honeycomb; so full o’ holes ef a body didn’t know which one they hid it in they couldn’t find it.”

“I hev hearn folks a-talkin’ ’bout it myself,” put in Pete Sawyer, “though o’ late years they hev gin that up, mos’ly.”

“Yessir,” assented Corbin. “An’ the g’rillas they s’arched the Squair’s house ag’in an’ ag’in, an’ couldn’t find nuthin’. These two boys hed run off ter the Secesh army, by that time, else they’d hev been made ter tell whar the plunder war hid. An’ though Jerry deserted an’ kem back, the Southern sympathizers wouldn’t let him bide one single night in the cove, but druv him off, an’ he ain’t dared ter show his face hyar sence, else I reckon he’d hev stole the money, ef he hed knowed whar it war—the Squair being dead mighty onexpected.”

The storekeeper’s eyes widened. “Ye—’low—the—money’s—thar—yit—hid in Keedon Bluffs?” he panted.

“I know this,” said old Corbin. “’Twar hid thar, an’ I hearn with my own ears the heirs say they never got no money out’n Keedon Bluffs—they fairly scouted the idee. An’ now,” he pursued, “one of the heirs is dead; an’ the t’ other’s moved ter Arkansas. An’ hyar kems one o’ the men ez watched whilst the money war hid; an’ the t’ other ez hid it—a _blind_ man—be in a mighty hurry an’ disturbament ter climb down Keedon Bluffs. I dunno why they hain’t got it afore. I can’t foller percisely the serpient trail of the evil men. But ye mark my words—them two fellers will hev a powerful big row—or”—his eyes twinkled—“they’ll divide the plunder an’ ye’ll hear o’ them consortin’ tergether like frien’s.”

He met with a triumphant leer the distended astonished gaze of the storekeeper.

“Ho! ho! Keedon Bluffs don’t speak ’less they be spoke to fust,” he continued, “but thar secrets git noised abroad. Thar’s suthin’ thar wuth layin’ hands on ’thout foolin’ along of a old spent cannon-ball.”