FullReads

black-arched opening yawned beneath the mountains, glooming with sepulchral shadows; in the silence one might hear drops trickling vaguely and the sudden hooting of an owl from within.

He drew up his horse abruptly, and contemplated the grim aperture.

“So they came into Tanglefoot down the road, and went out of the Cove by this tunnel?”

“Yessir!” she piped. What had befallen her voice? what appalled eerie squeak was this! She cleared her throat timorously. “They couldn’t hev done it later in the fall season. Tanglefoot Creek gits ter runnin’ with the fust rains.”

“An’ Tolhurst knew that too! He must have had a guide–a guide that knows the Cove like I know the palm of my hand! Well, I’ll catch him yet, sometime. I’ll hang him! I’ll hang him–if I have to grow a tree a-pur-pose.”

What strange influence had betided the landscape? Around and around circled the great stationary mountains anchored in the foundations of the earth. It was a long moment before they were still again–perhaps, indeed, it was the necessity of guarding her balance on the fiery steed, a new cause of apprehension, that paradoxically steadied Ethelinda’s nerves. Ackert had dismounted, throwing the reins over his arm. He had caught sight of the hoof marks along the moist sandy spaces of the channel, mute witness in point of number, and a guaranty of the truth of her story. A sudden glitter arrested his eyes. He stooped and picked up a broken belt-buckle with the significant initials U.S. yet showing upon it.

“I’ll hang that guide yet,” he muttered, his eyes dark with angry conviction, his face lowering with fury. “I’ll hang him–I won’t expect to prove it p’int blank. Jes’ let me git a mite o’ suspicion, an’ I’ll guarantee the slipknot!”

She could never understand her motive, her choice of the moment.

“Cap’n Ackert,” she trembled forth. There was so much significance in her tone that, standing at her side, he looked up in sudden expectation. “I tole ye the truth whenst I say I seen no guide”–he made a gesture of impatience; he had no time for twice-told tales–“kase–kase the guide war–war–myself.”

The clear twilight fell full on his amazed, upturned face and the storm of fury it concentrated.

“What did you do it fur?” he thundered, “you limb o’ perdition!”

“Jes’ ter help him some. He–he–he–would hev been capshured.”

He would indeed! The guerilla was very terrible to look upon as his brow corrugated, and his upturned eyes, with the light of the sky within them, flashed ominously.

“You little she-devil!” he cried, and then speech seemed to fail him.

She had begun to shiver and shed tears and emit little gusts of quaking sobs.

“Oh, I be so feared—-” she whimpered.

“But–but–you mustn’t hang–nobody else on s’picion!”

There was a vague change in the expression of his face. He still stood beside the saddle, with the reins over his arm, while the horse threw his head almost to the ground and again tossed it aloft in his impatient weariness of the delay.

“An’ now you are captured yourself,” he said, sternly. “You are accountable fur your actions.”

She burst into a paroxysm of sobs. “I never went ter tell! I meant ter keep the secret! The folks in the Cove dun’no’ nuthin’. But–oh, ye mustn’t s’picion nobody else–ye mustn’t hang nobody else!”

Once more that indescribable change upon his face.

“You showed him the way to this pass yourself? Tell the truth!”

“He war ridin’ his horse-critter–’tain’t ez fast, nor fine, nor fat ez yourn.”

He stroked the glossy mane with a sort of mechanical pride.

“And so he went plumb through the cave?”

“An’ all the troop–they kindled pine-knots fur torches.”

He glanced about him at the convenient growths.

“And they came out all safe in Greenbrier!” He winced. How the lost opportunity hurt him!

“Yessir. In Greenbrier Cove.”

“Did he pay you in gold?” sneered Ackert. “Or in greenbacks? Or mebbe in Cornfed money?”

“I wouldn’t hev his gold.” She drew herself up proudly, though the tears were still coursing down her cheeks. “So he gin me a present–a whole passel o’ coffee in my milk-piggin.” Then to complete a candid confession she detailed the disposition she had made of this rare and precious luxury at the rebel smallpox camp.