The Conscripts' Hollow

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Title:     The Conscripts' Hollow
Author: Mary Noailles Murfree [More Titles by Murfree]

CHAPTER I

"I'm a-goin' ter climb down ter that thar ledge, an' slip round ter the hollow whar them conscripts built thar fire in the old war times."

Nicholas Gregory paused on the verge of the great cliff and cast a sidelong glance at Barney Pratt, who was beating about among the red sumach bushes in the woods close at hand, and now and then stooping to search the heaps of pine needles and dead leaves where they had been blown together on the ground.

"Conscripts!" Barney ejaculated, with a chuckle. "That's precisely what them men war determinated _not_ ter be! They war a-hidin' in the mountings ter git shet o' the conscription."

"Waal, I don't keer ef _ye_ names 'em 'conscripts' or no," Nicholas retorted loftily. "That's what other folks calls 'em. I'm goin' down ter the hollow, whar they built thar fire, ter see ef that old missin' tur-r-key-hen o' our'n hain't hid her nest off 'mongst them dead chunks, an' sech."

"A tur-r-key ain't sech a powerful fool ez that," said Barney, coming to the edge of the precipice and looking over at the ledge, which ran along the face of the cliff twenty feet below. "How'd she make out ter fotch the little tur-r-keys up hyar, when they war hatched? They'd fall off'n the bluff."

"A tur-r-key what hev stole her nest away from the folks air fool enough fur ennything," Nicholas declared.

Perhaps he did not really expect to find the missing fowl in such an out-of-the-way place as this, but being an adventurous fellow, the sight of the crag was a temptation. He had often before clambered down to the ledge, which led to a great niche in the solid rock, where one night during the war some men who were hiding from the conscription had kindled their fire and cooked their scanty food. The charred remnants of logs were still here, but no one ever thought about them now, except the two boys, who regarded them as a sort of curiosity.

Sometimes they came and stared at them, and speculated about them, and declared to each other that _they_ would not consider it a hardship to go a-soldiering.

Then Nick would tell Barney of a wonderful day when he had driven to the county town in his uncle's wagon. There was a parade of militia there, and how grand the drum had sounded! And as he told it he would shoulder a smoke-blackened stick, and stride about in the Conscripts' Hollow, and feel very brave.

He had no idea in those days how close at hand was the time when his own courage should be tried.

"Kem on, Barney!" he urged. "Let's go down an' sarch fur the tur-r-key."

But Barney had thrown himself down upon the crag with a long-drawn sigh of fatigue.

"Waal," he replied, in a drowsy tone, "I dunno 'bout'n that. I'm sorter banged out, 'kase I hev had a powerful hard day's work a-bilin' sorghum at our house. I b'lieves I'll rest my bones hyar, an' wait fur ye."

As he spoke, he rolled up one of the coats which they had both thrown off, during their search for the nest on the summit of the cliff, and slipped it under his head. He was far the brighter boy of the two, but his sharp wits seemed to thrive at the expense of his body. He was small and puny, and he was easily fatigued in comparison with big burly Nick, who rarely knew such a sensation, and prided himself upon his toughness.

"Waal, Barney, surely ye air the porest little shoat on G'liath Mounting!" he exclaimed scornfully, as he had often done before. But he made no further attempt to persuade Barney, and began the descent alone.

It was not so difficult a matter for a sure-footed mountaineer like Nick to make his way down to the ledge as one might imagine, for in a certain place the face of the cliff presented a series of jagged edges and projections which afforded him foothold. As he went along, too, he kept a strong grasp upon overhanging vines and bushes that grew out from earth-filled crevices.

He had gone down only a short distance when he paused thoughtfully. "This hyar wind air blowin' powerful brief," he said. "I mought get chilled an' lose my footin'."

He hardly liked to give up the expedition, but he was afraid to continue on his way in the teeth of the mountain wind, cold and strong in the October afternoon. If only he had his heavy jeans coat with him!

"Barney!" he called out, intending to ask his friend to throw it over to him.

There was no answer.

"That thar Barney hev drapped off ter sleep a'ready!" he exclaimed indignantly.

He chanced to glance upward as he was about to call again. There he saw a coat lying on the edge of the cliff, the dangling sleeve fluttering just within his reach. When he dragged it down and discovered that it was Barney's instead of his own, he was slightly vexed, but it certainly did not seem a matter of great importance.

"That boy hev got _my_ coat, an' this is his'n. But law! I'd ruther squeeze myself small enough ter git inter his'n, than ter hev ter yell like a catamount fur an hour an' better ter wake him up, an' make him gimme mine."

He seated himself on a narrow projection of the crag, and began to cautiously put on his friend's coat. He had need to be careful, for a precarious perch like this, with an unmeasured abyss beneath, the far blue sky above, the almost inaccessible face of a cliff on one side, and on the other a distant stretch of mountains, is not exactly the kind of place in which one would prefer to make a toilet. Besides the dangers of his position, he was anxious to do no damage to the coat, which although loose and baggy on Barney, was rather a close fit for Nick.

"I ain't used ter climbin' with a coat on, nohow, an' I mus' be mighty keerful not ter bust Barney's, 'kase it air all the one he hev got," he said to himself as he clambered nimbly down to the ledge.

Then he walked deftly along the narrow shelf, and as he turned abruptly into the immense niche in the cliff called the Conscripts' Hollow, he started back in sudden bewilderment. His heart gave a bound, and then it seemed to stand still.

He hardly recognized the familiar place. There, to be sure, were the walls and the dome-like roof, but upon the dusty sandstone floor were scattered quantities of household articles, such as pots and pails and pans and kettles. There was a great array of brogans, too, and piles of blankets, and bolts of coarse unbleached cotton and jeans cloth.

"Waal, sir!" he exclaimed, as he gazed at them with wild, uncomprehending eyes.

Then the truth flashed upon him. A story had reached Goliath Mountain some weeks before, to the effect that a cross-roads store, some miles down the valley, had been robbed. The thieves had escaped with the stolen goods, leaving no clue by which they might be identified and brought to justice.

Nick saw that he had made a discovery. Here it was that the robbers had contrived to conceal their plunder, doubtless intending to wait until suspicion lulled, when they could carry it to some distant place, where it could safely be sold.

Suddenly a thought struck him that sent a shiver through every fibre of his body. This store was robbed in a singular manner. No bolt was broken,--no door burst open. There was a window, however, that lacked one pane of glass. The aperture would not admit a man's body. It was believed that the burglars had passed a boy through it, who had handed out the stolen goods.

And now, Nick foolishly argued, if any one should discover that _he_ knew where the plunder was hidden, they would believe that _he_ was that boy who had robbed the store!

He began to resolve that he would say nothing about what he had seen,--not even to Barney. He thought his safety lay in his silence. Still, he did not want his silence to be to the advantage of wicked men, so he tried to persuade himself that the burglars would soon be traced and captured without the information which he knew it was his duty to give. "Ter be sartain, the officers will kem on this place arter a while," he said meditatively.

Then he shook his head doubtfully. The crag was far from any house, and except the dwellers on Goliath Mountain, few people knew of this great niche in it. "They war sly foxes what stowed away thar plunder hyar!" he exclaimed in despair.

Often, when Nick had before stood in the Conscripts' Hollow, he had imagined that he would make a good soldier. But his idea of a soldier was a fine uniform, and the ra-ta-ta of martial music. He had no conception of that high sense of duty which nerves a man to face danger; even now he did not know that he was a coward as he faltered and feared in the cause of right to encounter suspicion.

Courage!--Nick thought that meant to crack away at a bear, if you were lucky enough to have the chance; or to kill a rattlesnake, if you had a big heavy stone close at hand; or to scramble about among crags and precipices, if you felt certain of the steadiness of your head and the strength of your muscles. But he did not realize that "courage" could mean the nerve to speak one little word for duty's sake.

He would not speak the word,--he had determined on that,--for might they not think that _he_ was the boy who had robbed the store?

He was quivering with excitement when he turned and began to walk along the ledge toward those roughly hewn natural steps by which he had descended. He knew that his agitation rendered his footing insecure. He was afraid of falling into the depths beneath, and he pressed close against the cliff.

On the narrow ledge, hardly two yards distant from the Conscripts' Hollow, a clump of blackberry bushes was growing from a crevice in the rock. They had never before given him trouble; but now, as he brushed hastily past, they seemed to clutch at him with their thorny branches.

As he tore away from them roughly, he did not observe that he had left a fragment of his brown jeans clothing hanging upon the thorns, as a witness to his presence here close to the Conscripts' Hollow, where the stolen goods lay hidden. There was a coarse, dark-colored horn button attached to the bit of brown jeans, which was a three-cornered scrap of his coat. No! of _Barney's_ coat. And was it to be a witness against poor Barney, who had not gone near the Conscripts' Hollow, but was lying asleep on the summit of the crag, supposing he had his own coat under his own head?

He did not discover his mistake until some time afterward, for when Nick had slowly and laboriously climbed up the steep face of the cliff, he stripped off his friend's torn coat before he roused him. Barney was awakened by having his pillow dragged rudely from under his head, and when at last he reluctantly opened his eyes on the hazy yellow sunlight, and saw Nick standing near on the great gray crag, he had no idea that this moment was an important crisis in his life.

The wind was coming up the gorge fresh and free; the autumnal foliage, swaying in it, was like the flaunting splendors of red and gold banners; the western ranges had changed from blue to purple, for the sun was sinking.

"It's gittin' toler'ble late, Barney," said Nick. "Let's go." He had on his own coat now, and he was impatient to be off.

"Did ye find the tur-r-key's nest in the Conscripts' Hollow?" asked Barney, with a lazy yawn, and still flat on his back.

"No," said Nick curtly.

Then it occurred to him that it would be safer if his friend should think he had not been in the Hollow. "No," he reiterated, after a pause, "I didn't go down ter the ledge arter all."

He had begun to lie,--where would it end?

"Whyn't you-uns go?" demanded Barney, surprised.

"The wind war blowin' so powerful brief," Nick replied without a qualm. "So I jes' s'arched fur a while in the woods back thar a piece."

In a moment more, Barney rose to his feet, picked up his coat, and put it on. He did not notice the torn place, for the garment was old and worn, and had many ragged edges. It lacked, however, but one button, and that missing button was attached to the triangular bit of brown jeans that fluttered on the thorny bush close to the Conscripts' Hollow.

All unconscious of his loss, he went away in the rich autumnal sunset, leaving it there as a witness against him.

 

CHAPTER II

After this, Nicholas Gregory was very steady at his work for a while. He kept out of the woods as much as possible, and felt that he knew more already than was good for him. Above all, he avoided that big sandstone cliff and the Conscripts' Hollow, where the goods lay hidden.

He heard no more of the search that had been made for the burglars and their booty, and he congratulated himself on his caution in keeping silent about what he had found.

"Now, ef it hed been that thar wide-mouthed Barney, stid o' me, he'd hev blabbed fust thing, an' they'd all hev thunk ez he war the boy what them scoundrels put through the winder ter steal the folkses' truck. They'd hev jailed him, I reckon."

He had begun to forget his own part in the wrong-doing,--that his silence was helping to screen "them scoundrels" from the law.

This state of mind continued for a week, perhaps. Then he fell to speculating about the stolen goods. He wondered whether they were all there yet, or whether the burglars had managed to carry them away. His curiosity grew so great that several times he was almost at the point of going to see for himself; but one morning, early, when an opportunity to do so was suddenly presented, his courage failed him.

His mother had just come into the log cabin from the hen-house with a woe-begone face.

"I do declar'!" she exclaimed solemnly, "that I'm surely the afflictedest 'oman on G'liath Mounting! An' them young fall tur-r-keys air so spindlin' an' delikit they'll be the death o' me yit!"

They were so spindling and delicate that they were the death of themselves. She had just buried three, and her heart and her larder were alike an aching void.

"Three died ter-day, an' two las' Wednesday!" As she counted them on her fingers she honored each with a shake of the head, so mournful that it might be accounted an obituary in dumb show. "I hev had no sort'n luck with this tur-r-key's brood, an' the t'other hev stole her nest away, an' I hev got sech a mean no-'count set o' chillen they can't find her. Waal! waal! waal! this comin' winter the Lord'll be _obleeged_ ter pervide."

This was washing-day, and as she began to scrub away on the noisy washboard, a sudden thought struck her. "Ye told me two weeks ago an' better, Nick, that ye hed laid off ter sarch the Conscripts' Hollow; ye 'lowed ye hed been everywhar else. Did ye go thar fur the tur-r-key?"

She faced him with her dripping arms akimbo.

Nick's face turned red as he answered, "That thar tur-r-key ain't a-nigh thar."

"What ails ye, Nick? thar's su'thin' wrong. I kin tell it by yer looks. Ye never hed the grit ter sarch thar, I'll be bound; did ye, now?"

Nick could not bring himself to admit having been near the place.

"No," he faltered, "I never sarched thar."

"Ye'll do it now, though!" his mother declared triumphantly. "I'm afeard ter send Jacob on sech a yerrand down the bluffs, kase he air so little he mought fall; but he air big enough ter go 'long an' watch ye go down ter the Hollow--else ye'll kem back an' say ye hev sarched thar, when ye ain't been a-nigh the bluff."

There seemed for a moment no escape for Nick. His mother was looking resolutely at him, and Jacob had gotten up briskly from his seat in the chimney-corner. He was a small tow-headed boy with big owlish eyes, and Nick knew from experience that they were very likely to see anything he did _not_ do. He must go; and then if at any time the stolen goods should be discovered, Jacob and his mother, and who could say how many besides, would know that he had been to the Conscripts' Hollow, and must have seen what was hidden there.

In that case his silence on the subject would be very suspicious. It would seem as if he had some connection with the burglars, and for that reason tried to conceal the plunder.

He was saying to himself that he would not go--and he must! How could he avoid it? As he glanced uneasily around the room, his eyes chanced to fall on a little object lying on the edge of the shelf just above the washtub. He made the most of the opportunity. As he slung his hat upon his head with an impatient gesture, he managed to brush the shelf with it and knock the small object into the foaming suds below.

His mother sank into a chair with uplifted hands and eyes.

"The las' cake o' hop yeast!" she cried. "An' how air the bread ter be raised?"

To witness her despair, one would think only jack-screws could do it.

"Surely I _am_ the afflictedest 'oman on G'liath Mounting! An' ter-morrer Brother Pete's wife an' his gals air a-comin', and I hed laid off ter hev raised bread."

For "raised bread" is a great rarity and luxury in these parts, the nimble "dodgers" being the staff of life.

"I never went ter do it," muttered Nick.

"Waal, ye kin jes' kerry yer bones down the mounting ter Sister Mirandy's house, an' ax her ter fotch me a cake o' her yeast when she kems up hyar ter-day ter holp me sizin' yarn. Arter that I don't keer what ye does with yerself. Ef ye stays hyar along o' we-uns, ye'll haul the roof down nex', I reckon. 'Pears like ter me ez boys an' men-folks air powerful awk'ard, useless critters ter keep in a house; they oughter hev pens outside, I'm a-thinkin'."

She had forgotten about the turkey, and Nick was glad enough to escape on these terms.

It was not until after he had finished his errand at Aunt Mirandy's house that he chanced to think again of the Conscripts' Hollow. As he was slowly lounging back up the mountain, he paused occasionally on the steep slope and looked up at the crags high on the summit, which he could see, now and then, diagonally across a deep cove.

When he came in sight of the one which he had such good reason to remember, he stopped and stood gazing fixedly at it for a long time, wondering again whether the robbers had yet carried off their plunder from its hiding-place.

He was not too distant to distinguish the Conscripts' Hollow, but from his standpoint, he could not at first determine where was the ledge. He thought he recognized it presently in a black line that seemed drawn across the massive cliff.

But what was that upon it? A moving figure! He gazed at it spell-bound for a moment, as it slowly made its way along toward the Hollow. Then he wanted to see no more; he wanted to know no more. He turned and fled at full speed along the narrow cow-path among the bushes.

Suddenly there was a rustle among them. Something had sprung out into the path with a light bound, and as he ran, he heard a swift step behind him. It seemed a pursuing step, for, as he quickened his pace, it came faster too. It was a longer stride than his; it was gaining upon him. A hand with a grip like a vise fell upon his shoulder, and as he was whirled around and brought face to face with his pursuer, he glanced up and recognized the constable of the district.

This was a tall, muscular man, dressed in brown jeans, and with a bushy red beard. He knew Nick well, for he, too, was a mountaineer.

"Ye war a-dustin' along toler'ble fast, Nicholas Gregory," he exclaimed; "but nothin' on G'liath Mounting kin beat me a-runnin' 'thout it air a deer. Ye'll kem along with me now, and stir yer stumps powerful lively, too, kase I hain't got no time ter lose."

"What am I tuk up fur?" gasped Nick.

"S'picious conduc'," replied the man curtly.

Nick knew no more now than he did before. The officer's next words made matters plainer. "Things look mightily like ye war set hyar ter watch that thar ledge. Ez soon ez ye seen our men a-goin' ter the Conscripts' Hollow ter sarch fur that thar stole truck, ye war a-goin' ter scuttle off an' gin the alarm ter them rascally no-'count burglars. I saw ye and yer looks, and I suspicioned some sech game. Ye don't cheat the law in _this_ deestrick--not often! Ye air the very boy, I reckon, what holped ter rob Blenkins's store. Whar's the other burglars? Ye'd better tell!"

"I dunno!" cried Nick tremulously. "I never had nothin' ter do with 'em."

"Ye hev told on yerself," the man retorted. "Why did ye stand a-gapin' at the Conscripts' Hollow, ef ye didn't know thar was suthin special thar?"

Nick, in his confusion, could invent no reply, and he was afraid to tell the truth. He looked mutely at the officer, who held his arm and looked down sternly at him.

"Ye air a bad egg,--that's plain. I'll take ye along whether I ketches the other burglars or no."

They toiled up the steep ascent in silence, and before very long were on the summit of the mountain, and within view of the crag.

There on the great gray cliff, in the midst of the lonely woods, were several men whom Nick had never before seen. Their busy figures were darkly defined against the hazy azure of the distant ranges, and as they moved about, their shadows on the ground seemed very busy too, and blotted continually the golden sunshine that everywhere penetrated the thinning masses of red and bronze autumn foliage.

A wagon, close at hand, was already half full of the stolen goods, and a number of men were going cautiously up and down the face of the cliff, bringing articles, or passing them from one to another.

"Well, this _is_ a tedious job!" exclaimed the sheriff, John Stebbins by name. He was a quick-witted, good-natured man, but being active in temperament, he was exceedingly impatient of delay. "How long did it take 'em to get all those heavy things down into the Conscripts' Hollow,--hey, bub?" he added, appealing to Nick, who had been brought to his notice by the constable. It was terrible to Nick that they should all speak to him as if he were one of the criminals. He broke out with wild protestations of his innocence, denying, too, that he had had any knowledge of what was hidden in the Conscripts' Hollow.

"Then what made ye run, yander on the slope, when ye seen thar war somebody on the ledge?" demanded the constable.

Nick had a sudden inspiration. "Waal," he faltered, with an explanatory sob, which was at once ludicrous and pathetic, "I war too fur off ter make out fur sure what 'twar on the ledge. 'Twar black-lookin', an' I 'lowed 'twar a b'ar."

All the men laughed at this.

"I sot out ter run ter Aunt Mirandy's house ter borry Job's gun ter kem up hyar, an' mebbe git a crack at him," continued Nick.

"That doesn't seem unnatural," said the sheriff. Then he turned to the constable. "This ain't enough to justify us in holding on to the boy, Jim, unless we can fix that scrap with the button on him. Where is it?"

"D'ye know whose coat this kem off'n?" asked the constable, producing a bit of brown jeans, with a dark-colored horn button attached to it. "How'd it happen ter be stickin' ter them blackberry-bushes on the ledge?"

Nick recognized it in an instant. It was Barney Pratt's button, and a bit of Barney Pratt's coat. But he knew well enough that he himself must have torn it when he wore it down to the Conscripts' Hollow.

He realized that he should have at once told the whole truth of what he knew about the stolen goods. He was well aware that he ought not to suffer the suspicion which had unjustly fallen upon him to be unjustly transferred to Barney, who he knew was innocent.

But he was terribly frightened, and foolishly cautious, and he did not care for justice, nor truth, nor friendship, now. His only anxiety was to save himself.

"That thar piece o' brown jeans an' that button kem off'n Barney Pratt's coat. I'd know 'em anywhar," he answered, more firmly than before. He noted the fact that the searching eyes of both officers were fixed upon his own coat, which was good and whole, and lacked no buttons. He had not even a twinge of conscience just now. In his meanness and cowardice his heart exulted, as he saw that suspicion was gradually lifting its dark shadow from him. He cared not where it might fall next.

"We'll have to let you slide, I reckon," said the sheriff. "But what size is this Barney Pratt?"

"He air a lean, stringy little chap," said Nick.

"Is that so?" said the sheriff. "Well, this is a bit of his coat and his button; and they were found on the ledge, close to the Conscripts' Hollow where the plunder was hid; and he's a small fellow, that maybe could slip through a window-pane. That makes a pretty strong showing against him. We'll go for Barney Pratt!"

 

CHAPTER III

Barney Pratt expected this day to be a holiday. Very early in the morning his father and mother had jolted off in the wagon to attend the wedding of a cousin, who lived ten miles distant on a neighboring mountain, and they had left him no harder task than to keep the children far enough from the fire, and his paralytic grandmother close enough to it.

This old woman was of benevolent intentions, although she had a stick with which she usually made her wants known by pointing, and in her convulsive clutch the stick often whirled around and around like the sails of a windmill, so that if Barney chanced to come within the circle it described, he got as hard knocks from her feeble arm as he could have had in a tussle with big Nick Gregory.

He was used to dodging it, and so were the smaller children. Without any fear of it they were all sitting on the hearth at the old woman's feet,--Ben and Melissa popping corn in the ashes, and Tom and Andy watching Barney's deft fingers as he made a cornstalk fiddle for them.

Suddenly Barney glanced up and saw his grandmother's stick whirling over his head. Her eyes were fastened eagerly upon the window, and her lips trembled as she strove to speak.

"What d'ye want, granny?" he asked.

Then at last it came out, quick and sharp, and in a convulsive gasp,--"Who air all that gang o'folks a-comin' yander down the road?"

Barney jumped up, threw down the fiddle, and ran to the door with the children at his heels. There was a quiver of curiosity among them, for it was a strange thing that a "gang o'folks" should be coming down this lonely mountain road.

They went outside of the log cabin and stood among the red sumach bushes that clustered about the door, while the old woman tottered after them to the threshold, and peered at the crowd from under her shaking hand as she shaded her eyes from the sunlight.

Presently a wagon came up with eight or ten men walking behind it, or riding in it in the midst of a quantity of miscellaneous articles of which Barney took no particular notice. As he went forward, smiling in a frank, fearless way, he recognized a familiar face among the crowd. It was Nick Gregory's, and Barney's smile broadened into a grin of pleasure and welcome.

Then it was that Nick's conscience began to wake up, and to lay hold upon him.

As the sheriff looked at Barney he hesitated. He balanced himself heavily on the wheel, instead of leaping quickly down as he might have done easily enough, for he was a spare man and light on his feet. Nick overheard him speak in a low voice to the constable, who stood just below.

"_That_ ain't the fellow, is it, Jim?"

"That's him, percisely," responded Jim Dow.

"He don't _look_ like it," said Stebbins, jumping down at last, but still speaking under his breath.

"Waal, thar ain't no countin' on boys by the _outside_ on 'em," returned the constable emphatically; he had an unruly son of his own.

The sheriff walked up to Barney.

"You're Barney Pratt, are you? Well, youngster, you'll come along with us."

There was silence for a moment. Barney stared at him in amaze. Not until he had caught sight of the constable, whom he knew in his official character, did he understand the full meaning of what had been said. He was under arrest!

As he realized it, everything began to whirl before him. The yellow sunshine, the gorgeously tinted woods, the blue sky, and the silvery mists hovering about the distant mountains, were all confusedly mingled in his failing vision.

He looked as if he were about to faint. But in a few minutes he had partially recovered himself.

"I dunno what this air done ter me fur," he said tremulously, glancing up at the officer whose hand was on his shoulder.

"Hain't ye been doin' nothin' mean lately?" demanded Jim Dow sternly.

Barney shook his head.

"Let's see ef this won't remind ye," said the constable, producing the bit of jeans and the button.

As Nick watched Barney turning the piece of cloth in his hand and examining the button, he felt a terrible pang of remorse. But he was none the less resolved to keep the freedom from danger which he had secured at the expense of his friend. To explain would be merely to exchange places with Barney, and he was silent.

"This hyar looks like a scrap o' my coat," said Barney, utterly unaware of the significance of his words. As he fitted it into the jagged edges of the garment, the officers watched the proceeding closely. "'Pears like ter me ez it war jerked right out thar--yes--kase hyar air the missin' button, too."

His air of unconsciousness puzzled the sheriff. "Do you know where you lost this scrap?" he asked.

"Somewhars 'mongst the briers in the woods, I reckon," replied Barney.

"No; you tore it on a blackberry bush on the ledge of a bluff; it was close to the Conscripts' Hollow, where some burglars have hidden stolen plunder. I found the scrap and the button there myself."

Barney felt as if he were dreaming. How should his coat be torn on that ledge, where he had not been since the cloth was woven!

The next words almost stunned him.

"Ye see, sonny," said the constable, "we believes ye're the boy what holped to rob Blenkins's store by gittin' through a winder-pane an' handin' out the stole truck ter the t'other burglars. Ye hev holped about that thar plunder somehows,--else this hyar thing air a liar!" and he shook the bit of cloth significantly.

"We'd better set out, Jim," said Stebbins, turning toward the wagon. "We'll pass Blenkins's on the way, and we'll stop and see if this chap can slip through the window-pane. If he can't, it's a point in his favor, and if he can, it's a point against him. As we go, we can try to get him to tell who the other burglars are."

"Kem on, bubby; we can't stand hyar no longer, a-wastin' the time an' a-burnin' of daylight," said the constable.

Barney seemed to have lost control of his rigid limbs, and he was half-dragged, half-lifted into the wagon by the two officers. The crowd began to fall back and disperse, and he could see the group of "home-folks" at the door. But he gave only one glance at the little log cabin, and then turned his head away. It was a poor home, but if it had been a palace, the pang he felt as he was torn from it could not have been sharper.

In that instant he saw granny as she stood in the doorway, her head shaking nervously and her stick whirling in her uncertain grasp. He knew that she was struggling to say something for his comfort, and he had a terrible moment of fear lest the wagon should begin to move and her feeble voice be lost in the clatter of the wheels. But presently her shrill tones rang out, "No harm kin kem, sonny, ter them ez hev done no harm. All that happens works tergether fur good, an' the will o' God."

Little breath as she had left, it had done good service to-day,--it had brought a drop of balm to the poor boy's heart. He did not look at her again, but he knew that she was still standing in the doorway among the clustering red leaves, whirling her stick, and shaking with the palsy, but determined to see the last of him.

And now the wagon was rolling off, and a piteous wail went up from the children, who understood nothing except that Barney was being carried away against his will. Little four-year-old Melissa--she always seemed a beauty to Barney, with her yellow hair, and her blue-checked cotton dress, and her dimpled white bare feet--ran after the wagon until the tears blinded her, and she fell in the road, and lay there in the dust, sobbing.

Then Barney found his voice. His father and mother would not return until to-morrow, and the thought of what might happen at home, with nobody there but the helpless old grandmother and the little children, made him forget his own troubles for the time.

"Take good keer o' the t'other chillen, Andy!" he shouted out to the next oldest boy, thus making him a deputy-guardian of the family, "an' pick Melissy up out'n the dust, an' be sure ye keeps granny's cheer close enough ter the fire!"

Then he turned back again. He could still hear Melissa sobbing. He wondered why the two men in the wagon looked persistently in the opposite direction, and why they were both so silent.

The children stood in the road, watching the wagon as long as they could see it, but Nick had slunk away into the woods. He could not bear the sight of their grief. He walked on, hardly knowing where he went. He felt as if he were trying to get rid of himself. He appreciated fully now the consequences of what he had done. Barney, innocent Barney, would be thrust into jail.

He began to see that the most terrible phase of moral cowardice is its capacity to injure others, and he could not endure the thought of what he had brought upon his friend. Soon he was saying to himself that something was sure to happen to prevent them from putting Barney in prison,--he shouldn't be surprised if it were to happen before the wagon could reach the foot of the mountain.

In his despair, he had flung himself at length upon the rugged, stony ground at the base of a great crag. When this comforting thought of Barney's release came upon him, he took his hands from his face, and looked about him. From certain ledges of the cliff above, the road which led down the valley was visible at intervals for some distance. There he could watch the progress of the wagon, and see for a time longer what was happening to Barney.

There was a broad gulf between the wall of the mountain and the crag, which, from its detached position and its shape, was known far and wide as the "Old Man's Chimney."

It loomed up like a great stone column, a hundred feet above the wooded slope where Nick stood, and its height could only be ascended by dexterous climbing.

He went at it like a cat. Sometimes he helped himself up by sharp projections of the rock, sometimes by slipping his feet and hands into crevices, and sometimes he caught hold of a strong bush here and there, and gave himself a lift. When he was about forty feet from the base, he sat down on one of the ledges, and turning, looked anxiously along the red clay road which he could see winding among the trees down the mountain's side.

No wagon was there.

His eyes followed the road further and further toward the foot of the range, and then along the valley beyond. There, at least two miles distant, was a small moving black object, plainly defined upon the red clay of the road.

Barney was gone! There was no mistake about it. They had taken him away from Goliath Mountain! He was innocent, and Nick knew it, and Nick had made him seem guilty. There was no one near him now to speak a good word for him, not even his palsied old grandmother.

It all came back upon Nick with a rush. His eyes were blurred with rising tears. Unconsciously, in his grief, he made a movement forward, and suddenly clutched convulsively at the ledge.

He had lost his balance. There was a swift, fantastic whirl of vague objects before him, then a great light seemed flashing through his very brain, and he knew that he was falling.

He knew nothing else for some time. He wondered where he was when he first opened his eyes and saw the great stone shaft towering high above, and the tops of the sun-gilded maples waving about him.

Then he remembered and understood. He had fallen from that narrow ledge, hardly ten feet above his head, and had been caught in his descent by the far broader one upon which he lay.

"It knocked the senses out'n me fur a while, I reckon," he said to himself. "But I hev toler'ble luck now, sure ez shootin', kase I mought hev drapped over this ledge, an' then I'd hev been gone fur sartain sure!"

His exultation was short-lived. What was this limp thing hanging to his shoulder? and what was this thrill of pain darting through it?

He looked at it in amazement. It was his strong right arm--broken--helpless.

And here he was, perched thirty feet above the earth, weakened by his long faint, sore and bruised and unnerved by his fall, and with only his left arm to aid him in making that perilous descent.

It was impossible. He glanced down at the sheer walls of the column below, shook his head, and lay back on the ledge. Reckless as he was, he realized that the attempt would be fatal.

Then came a thought that filled him with dismay,--how long was this to last?--who would rescue him?

He knew that a prolonged absence from home would create no surprise. His mother would only fancy that he had slipped off, as he had often done, to go on a camp-hunt with some other boys. She would not grow uneasy for a week, at least.

He was deep in the heart of the forest, distant from any dwelling. No one, as far as he knew, came to this spot, except himself and Barney, and their errand here was for the sake of the exhilaration and the hazard of climbing the crag. It was so lonely that on the Old Man's Chimney the eagles built instead of the swallows. His hope--his only hope--was that some hunter might chance to pass before he should die of hunger.

The shadow of the great obelisk shifted as the day wore on, and left him in the broad, hot glare of the sun. His broken arm was fevered and gave him great pain. Now and then he raised himself on the other, and looked down wistfully at the cool, dusky depths of the woods. He heard continually the impetuous rushing of a mountain torrent near at hand; sometimes, when the wind stirred the foliage, he caught a glimpse of the water, rioting from rock to rock, and he was oppressed by an intolerable thirst.

Thus the hours lagged wearily on.

 

CHAPTER IV

When the wagon was rolling along the road in the valley, Barney at first kept his eyes persistently fastened upon the craggy heights and the red and gold autumnal woods of Goliath Mountain, as the mighty range stretched across the plain.

But presently the two men began to talk to him, and he turned around in order to face them. They were urging him to confess his own guilt and tell who were the other burglars, and where they were. But Barney had nothing to tell. He could only protest again and again his innocence. The men, however, shook their heads incredulously, and after a while they left him to himself and smoked their pipes in silence.

When Barney looked back at the mountains once more, a startling change seemed to have been wrought in the landscape. Instead of the frowning sandstone cliffs he loved so well, and the gloomy recesses of the woods, there was only a succession of lines of a delicate blue color drawn along the horizon. This was the way the distant ranges looked from the crags of his own home; he knew that they were the mountains, but which was Goliath?

Suddenly he struck his hands together, and broke out with a bitter cry.

"I hev los' G'liath!" he exclaimed. "I dunno whar I live! An' whar _is_ Melissy?"

A difficult undertaking, certainly, to determine where among all those great spurs and outliers, stretching so far on either hand, was that little atom of dimpled pink-and-white humanity known as "Melissy."

The constable, being a native of these hills himself, knew something by experience of the homesickness of an exiled mountaineer,--far more terrible than the homesickness of low-landers; he took his pipe promptly from between his lips, and told the boy that the second blue ridge, counting down from the sky, was "G'liath Mounting," and that "Melissy war right thar somewhar."

Barney looked back at it with unrecognizing eyes,--this gentle, misty, blue vagueness was not the solemn, sombre mountain that he knew. He gazed at it only for a moment longer; then his heart swelled and he burst into tears.

On and on they went through the flat country. The boy felt that he could scarcely breathe. Even tourists, coming down from these mountains to the valley below, struggle with a sense of suffocation and oppression; how must it have been then with this half-wild creature, born and bred on those breezy heights!

The stout mules did their duty well, and it was not long before they were in sight of the cross-roads store that had been robbed. It was a part of a small frame dwelling-house, set in the midst of the yellow sunlight that brooded over the plain. All the world around it seemed to the young backwoodsman to be a big cornfield; but there was a garden close at hand, and tall sunflowers looked over the fence and seemed to nod knowingly at Barney, as much as to say they had always suspected him of being one of the burglars, and were gratified that he had been caught at last.

Poor fellow! he saw so much suspicion expressed in the faces of a crowd of men congregating about the store, that it was no wonder he fancied he detected it too in inanimate objects.

Of all the group only one seemed to doubt his guilt. He overheard Blenkins, the merchant, say to Jim Dow,--

"It's mighty hard to b'lieve this story on this 'ere boy; he's a manly looking, straight-for'ard little chap, an' he's got honest eyes in his head, too."

"He'd a deal better hev an honest heart in his body," drawled Jim Dow, who was convinced that Barney had aided in the burglary.

When they had gone around to the window with the broken pane, Barney looked up at it in great anxiety. If only it should prove too small for him to slip through! Certainly it seemed very small.

He had pulled off his coat and stood ready to jump.

"Up with you!" said Stebbins.

The boy laid both hands on the sill, gave a light spring, and went through the pane like an eel.

"That settles it!" he heard Stebbins saying outside. And all the idlers were laughing because it was done so nimbly.

"That boy's right smart of a fool," said one of the lookers-on. "Now, if that had been me, I'd hev made out to git stuck somehows in that winder; I'd have scotched my wheel somewhere."

"Ef ye hed, I'd have dragged ye through ennyhow," declared Jim Dow, who had no toleration of a joke on a serious subject. "This hyar boy air a deal too peart ter try enny sech fool tricks on _Me_!"

Barney hardly knew how he got back into the wagon; he only knew that they were presently jolting along once more in the midst of the yellow glare of sunlight. It had begun to seem that there was no chance for him. Like Nick, he too had madly believed, in spite of everything, that something would happen to help him. He could not think that, innocent as he was, he would be imprisoned. Now, however, this fate evidently was very close upon him.

Suddenly Jim Dow spoke. "I s'pose ye war powerful disapp'inted kase ye couldn't git yerself hitched in that thar winder; ye air too well used to it,--ye hev been through it afore."

"I hev never been through it afore!" cried Barney indignantly.

"Well, well," said Stebbins pacifically, "it wouldn't have done you any good if you hadn't gone through the pane just now. I'd have only thought you were one of those who stood on the outside. You see, the _main_ point against you is that scrap of your coat and your button found right there by the Conscripts' Hollow,--though, of course, your going through the window-pane so easy makes it more complete."

Barney's tired brain began to fumble at this problem,--how did it happen?

He had not been on the ledge nor at the Conscripts' Hollow for six months at least. Yet there was that bit of his coat and his button found on the bush close at hand only to-day.

Was it possible that he could have exchanged coats by mistake with Nick the last afternoon that they were on the crag together?

"Did Nick wear _my_ coat down on the ledge, I wonder, an' git it tored? Did Nick see the plunder in the Conscripts' Hollow, an' git skeered, an' then sot out ter lyin' ter git shet o' the blame?"

As he asked himself these questions, he began to remember, vaguely, having seen, just as he was falling asleep, his friend's head slowly disappearing beneath the verge of the crag.

"Nick started down ter the ledge, anyhow," he argued.

Did he dream it, or was it true, that when Nick came back he seemed at first strangely agitated?

All at once Barney exclaimed aloud,--

"This hyar air a powerful cur'ous thing 'bout'n that thar piece what war tored out'n my coat!"

"What's curious about it?" asked Stebbins quickly.

Jim Dow took his pipe from his mouth, and looked sharply at the boy.

Barney struggled for a moment with a strong temptation. Then a nobler impulse asserted itself. He would not even attempt to shield himself behind the friend who had done him so grievous an injury.

He _knew_ nothing positively; he must not put his suspicions and his vague, half-sleeping impressions into words, and thus possibly criminate Nick.

He himself felt certain now how the matter really stood,--that Nick had no connection whatever with the robbery, but having accidentally stumbled upon the stolen goods, he had become panic-stricken, had lied about it, and finally had saved himself at the expense of an innocent friend.

Still, Barney had no _proof_ of this, and he felt he would rather suffer unjustly himself than unjustly throw blame on another.

"Nothin', nothin'," he said absently. "I war jes' a-studyin' 'bout'n it all."

"Well, I wouldn't think about it any more just now," said good-natured Stebbins. "You look like you had been dragged through a keyhole instead of a window-pane. This town we're coming to is the biggest town you ever saw."

Barney could not respond to this attempt to divert his attention. He could only brood upon the fact that he was innocent, and would be punished as if he were guilty, and that it was Nick Gregory, his chosen friend, who had brought him to this pass.

He would not be unmanly, and injure Nick with a possibly unfounded suspicion, but his heart burned with indignation and contempt when he thought of him. He felt that he would go through fire and water to be justly revenged upon him.

He determined that, if ever he should see Nick again, even though years might intervene, he would tax him with the injury he had wrought, and make him answer for it.

Barney clenched his fists as he looked back at the ethereal blue shadows that they said were the solid old hills.

Perhaps, however, if he had known where, in the misty uncertainty that enveloped Goliath Mountain, Nick Gregory was at this moment,--far away in the lonely woods, helpless with his broken arm, perched high up on the "Old Man's Chimney,"--Barney might have thought himself the more fortunately placed of the two.

Before he was well aware of it, the wagon was jolting into the town. He took no notice of how much larger the little village was than any he had ever seen before. His attention was riveted by the faces of the people who ran to the doors and windows, upon recognizing the officers, to stare at him as one of the burglars.

When the wagon reached the public square, a number of men came up and stopped it.

Barney was surprised that they took so little notice of him. They were talking loudly and excitedly to the officers, who grew at once loud and excited, too.

The boy roused himself, and began to listen to the conversation. The burglars had been captured!--yes, that was what they were saying. The deputy-sheriff had nabbed the whole gang in a western district of the county this morning early, and they were lodged at this moment in jail. Barney's heart sank. Would he be put among the guilty creatures? He flinched from the very idea.

Suddenly, here was the deputy-sheriff himself, a young man, dusty and tired with his long, hard ride, but with an air of great satisfaction in his success. He talked with many quick gestures that were very expressive. Sometimes he would leave a sentence unfinished except by a brisk nod, but all the crowd caught its meaning instantly. This peculiarity gave him a very animated manner, and he seemed to Barney to enjoy being in a position of authority.

He pressed his foaming horse close to the wagon, and leaning over, looked searchingly into Barney's face.

The poor boy looked up deprecatingly from under his limp and drooping hat-brim.

All the crowd stood in silence, watching them. After a moment of this keen scrutiny, the deputy turned to the constable with an interrogative wave of the hand.

"This hyar's the boy what war put through the winder-pane ter thieve from Blenkins," said Jim Dow. "Thar's consider'ble fac's agin him."

"You mean well, Jim," said the deputy, with a short, scornful laugh. "But your performance ain't always equal to your intentions."

He lifted his eyebrows and nodded in a significant way that the crowd understood, for there was a stir of excitement in its midst; but poor Barney failed to catch his meaning. He hung upon every tone and gesture with the intensest interest. All the talk was about him, and he could comprehend no more than if the man spoke in a foreign language.

Still, he gathered something of the drift of the speech from the constable's reply.

"That thar boy's looks hev bamboozled more'n one man ter-day, jes' at fust," Jim Dow drawled. "_Looks_ ain't nothin'."

"I'd believe 'most anything a boy with a face on him like that would tell me," said the deputy. "And besides, you see, one of those scamps," with a quick nod toward the jail, "has turned State's evidence."

Barney's heart was in a great tumult. It seemed bursting. There was a hot rush of blood to his head. He was dizzy--and he could not understand!

State's evidence,--what was that? and what would that do to him?

 

CHAPTER V

Barney observed that these words produced a marked sensation. The crowd began to press more closely around the deputy-sheriff's foaming horse.

"Who hev done turned State's evidence?" asked Jim Dow.

"Little Jeff Carew,--you've seen that puny little man a-many a time--haven't you, Jim? He'd go into your pocket."

"He would, I know, powerful quick, ef he thunk I hed ennything in it," said Jim, with a gruff laugh.

"I didn't mean that, though it's true enough. I only went ter say that he's small enough to go into any ordinary-sized fellow's pocket. Some of the rest of them wanted to turn State's evidence, but they weren't allowed. They were harder customers even than Jeff Carew,--regular old jail-birds."

Barney began to vaguely understand that when a prisoner confesses the crime he has committed, and gives testimony which will convict his partners in it, this is called turning "State's evidence."

But how was it to concern Barney?

An old white-haired man had pushed up to the wagon; he polished his spectacles on his coat-tail, then put them on his nose, and focused them on Barney. Those green spectacles seemed to the boy to have a solemnly accusing expression on their broad and sombre lenses. He shrank as the old man spoke,--

"And is this the boy who was slipped through the window to steal from Blenkins?"

"No," said the deputy, "this ain't the boy."

Barney could hardly believe his senses.

"Fact is," continued the deputy, with a brisk wave of his hand, "there wasn't any boy with 'em,--so little Jeff Carew says. _He_ jumped through the window-pane _himself_. We wouldn't believe that until we measured one there at the jail of the same size as Blenkins's window-glass, and he went through it without a wriggle."

Barney sprang to his feet.

"Oh, tell it ter me, folkses!" he cried wildly; "tell it ter me, somebody! Will they keep me hyar all the same? An' when will I see G'liath Mounting agin, an' be whar Melissy air?"

He had burst into tears, and there was a murmur of sympathy in the crowd.

"Oh, that lets you out, I reckon, youngster," said Stebbins. "I'm glad enough of it for one."

The old man turned his solemnly accusing green spectacles on Stebbins, and it seemed to Barney that he spoke with no less solemnly accusing a voice.

"He ought never to have been let in."

Stebbins replied, rather eagerly, Barney thought, "Why, there was enough against that boy to have clapped him in jail, and maybe convicted him, if this man hadn't turned State's evidence."

"We hed the fac's agin him,--dead agin him," chimed in Jim Dow.

"That just shows how much danger an innocent boy was in; it seems to me that somebody ought to have been more careful," the old man protested.

"That's so!" came in half a dozen voices from the crowd.

Barney was surprised to see how many friends he had now, when a moment before he had had none. But he ought to have realized that there is a great difference between _being_ a young martyr, and _seeming_ a young thief.

"I want to see the little fellow out of this," said the old man with the terrible spectacles.

He saw him out of it in a short while.

There was an examination before a magistrate, in which Barney was discharged on the testimony of Jeff Carew, who was produced and swore that he had never before seen the boy, that he was not among the gang of burglars who had robbed Blenkins's store and dwelling-house, and that he had had no part in helping to conceal the plunder. In opposition to this, the mere finding of a scrap of Barney's coat close to the Conscripts' Hollow seemed now of slight consequence, although it could not be accounted for.

When the trial was over, the old man with the green spectacles took Barney to his house, gave him something to eat, and saw him start out homeward.

As Barney plodded along toward the blue mountains his heart was very bitter against Nick Gregory, who had lied and thrown suspicion upon him and brought him into danger. Whenever he thought of it he raised his clenched fist and shook it. He was a little fellow, but he felt that with the strength of this grievance he was more than a match for big Nick Gregory. He would force him to confess the lies that he had told and his cowardice, and all Goliath Mountain should know it and despise him for it.

"I'll fetch an' kerry that word to an' fro fur a thousand mile!" Barney declared between his set teeth.

Now and then a wagoner overtook him and gave him a ride, thus greatly helping him on his way. As he went, there was a gradual change in the blue and misty range that seemed to encircle the west, and which he knew, by one deep indentation in the horizontal line of its summit, was Goliath Mountain. It became first an intenser blue. As he drew nearer still, it turned a bronzed green. It had purpled with the sunset before he could distinguish the crimson and gold of its foliage and its beetling crags. Night had fallen when he reached the base of the mountain.

There was no moon; heavy clouds were rolling up from the horizon, and they hid the stars. Nick Gregory, lying on the ledge of the "Old Man's Chimney," thirty feet above the black earth, could not see his hand before his face. The darkness was dreadful to him. It had closed upon a dreadful day. The seconds were measured by the throbs and dartings of pain in his arm. He was almost exhausted by hunger and thirst. He thought, however, that he could have borne it all cheerfully, but for the sharp remorse that tortured him for the wrong he had done to his friend, and his wild anxiety about Barney's fate. Nick felt that he, himself, was on trial here, imprisoned on this tower of stone, cut off from the world, from everything but his sternly accusing conscience and his guilty heart.

For hours he had heard nothing but the monotonous rushing of the water close at hand, or now and then the shrill, quavering cry of a distant screech-owl, or the almost noiseless flapping of a bat's wings as they swept by him.

He had hardly a hope of deliverance, when suddenly there came a new sound, vague and indistinguishable. He lifted himself upon his left elbow and listened again. He could hear nothing for a moment except his own panting breath and the loud beating of his heart. But there--the sound came once more. What was it? a dropping leaf? the falling of a fragment of stone from the "Chimney"? a distant step?

It grew more distinct as it drew nearer; presently he recognized it,--the regular footfall of some man or boy plodding along the path. That path!--a recollection flashed through his mind. No one knew that short cut up the mountain but him and Barney; they had worn the path with their trampings back and forth from the "Old Man's Chimney."

He thought he must be dreaming, or that he had lost his reason; still he shouted out, "Hold on, thar! air it ye, Barney?"

The step paused. Then a reply came in a voice that he hardly recognized as Barney's; it was so fierce, and so full of half-repressed anger.

"Yes, it air Barney,--ef _ye_ hev any call ter know."

"How did ye git away, Barney?--how did ye git away?" exclaimed Nick, with a joyous sense of relief.

"A _thief's_ word cl'ared me!"

This bitter cry came up to Nick, sharp and distinct, through the dark stillness. He said nothing at the moment, and presently he heard Barney speak again, as he stood invisible, and enveloped in the gloom of the night, at the foot of the mighty column.

"'Twar my bes' frien' ez sunk me deep in trouble. But the _thief_, he fished me up. He 'lowed ter the jestice ez I never holped him ter steal nothin' nor ter hide it arterward, nuther."

Nick said not a word. The hot tears came into his eyes. Barney, he thought, could feel no more bitterly toward him than he felt toward himself.

"How kem my coat ter be tored down thar on the ledge, close ter the Conscripts' Hollow, whar I hain't been sence the cloth war wove?"

There was a long pause.

"I wore it thar, Barney, 'stid o' mine," Nick replied at last. "I never knowed, at fust, ez I hed tored it. I was so skeered when I seen the stole truck, I never knowed nothin'."

"An' then ye spoke a lie! An' arterward, ye let the folks think ez 'twar me ez hed tored that coat close by the Conscripts' Hollow!"

"I was skeered haffen ter death, Barney!"

Nick was very contemptible in his falsehood and cowardice,--even in his repentance and shame and sorrow. At least, so the boy thought who stood in the darkness at the foot of the great column. Suddenly it occurred to Barney that this was a strange place for Nick to be at this hour of the night. His indignation gave way for a moment to some natural curiosity.

"What air ye a-doin' of up thar on the Old Man's Chimney?" he asked.

"I kem up hyar this mornin' early, ter watch the wagon a-takin' ye off. Then I fell and bruk my arm, an' I can't git down 'thout bein' holped a little."

There was another silence, so intense that it seemed to Nick as if he were all alone again in the immensity of the mountains, and the black night, and the endless forests. He had expected an immediate proffer of assistance from Barney. He had thought that his injured friend would relent in his severity when he knew that he had suffered too; that he was in great pain even at this moment.

But not a word came from Barney.

"I hed laid off ter ax ye ter holp me a little," Nick faltered meekly, making his appeal direct.

There was no answer.

It was so still that the boy, high up on the sandstone pillar, could hear the wind rising among the far spurs west of Goliath. The foliage near at hand was ominously quiet in the sultry air. Once there was a flash of lightning from the black clouds, followed by a low muttering of thunder. Then all was still again,--so still!

Nick raised himself upon his left arm, and leaned cautiously over the verge of the ledge, peering, with starting eyes, into the darkness, and hoping for another flash of lightning that he might see below for an instant. A terrible suspicion had come to him. Could Barney have slipped quietly away, leaving him to his fate?

He could see nothing in the impenetrable gloom; he could hear nothing in the dark stillness.

Barney had not yet gone, but he was saying to himself, as he stood at the foot of the great obelisk, that here was his revenge, far more complete than he had dared even to hope.

He could measure out his false friend's punishment in any degree he thought fit. He could leave him there with his broken arm and his pangs of hunger for another day. He deserved it,--he deserved it richly. The recollection was still very bitter to Barney of the hardships he had endured at the hands of this boy, who asked him now for help. Why did he not refuse it? Why should he not take the revenge he had promised himself?

And then he knew there was danger in now trying to climb the jagged edges of the Old Man's Chimney. His nerves were shaken by the excitements of the day; he was fagged out by his long tramp; the wind was beginning to surge among the trees; it might blow him from his uncertain foothold. But when it gained more strength, might it not drive Nick, helpless with his broken arm, from that high ledge?

As this thought crossed his mind, he tore off his hat, coat, and shoes, and desperately began the ascent. He thought he knew every projection and crevice and bush so well that he might have found his way blindfolded, and guided by the sense of touch alone. But he did not lack for light. Before he was six feet up from the ground, the clouds were rent by a vivid flash, and an instantaneous peal of thunder woke all the echoes. This was the breaking of the storm; afterward, there was a continuous pale flickering over all the sky, and at close intervals, dazzling gleams of lightning darted through the rain, which was now falling heavily.

"I'm a-comin', Nick!" shouted Barney, through the din of the elements.

Somehow, as he climbed, he felt light-hearted again. It seemed to him that he had left a great weight at the foot of the gigantic sandstone column. Could it be that bitter revenge he had promised himself? He had thought only of Nick's safety, but he seemed to have done himself a kindness in forgiving his friend,--the burden of revenge is so heavy! His troubles were already growing faint in his memory,--it was so good to feel the rain splashing in his face, and his rude playfellow, the mountain wind, rioting around him once more. He was laughing when at last he pulled himself up, wet through and through, on the ledge beside Nick.

"It's airish up hyar, ain't it?" he cried.

"Barney," said Nick miserably, "I dunno how I kin ever look at ye agin, squar' in the face, while I lives."

"Shet that up!" Barney returned good-humoredly. "I don't want ter ever hear 'bout'n it no more. I'll always know, arter this, that I can't place no dependence in ye; but, law, ye air jes' like that old gun o' mine; sometimes it'll hang fire, an' sometimes it'll go off at half-cock, an' ginerally it disapp'ints me mightily. But, somehows, I can't determinate to shoot with no other one. I'll hev ter feel by ye jes' like I does by that thar old gun."

The descent was slow and difficult, and very painful to Nick, and fraught with considerable danger to both boys. They accomplished it in safety, however, and then, with Barney's aid, Nick managed to drag himself through the woods to the nearest log cabin, where his arm was set by zealous and sympathetic amateurs in a rude fashion that probably would have shocked the faculty. They had some supper here, and an invitation to remain all night; but Barney was wild to be at home, and Nick, in his adversity, clung to his friend.

The rain had ceased, and they had only half a mile further to go. Barney's heart was exultant when he saw the light in the window of his home, and the sparks flying up from the chimney. He had some curiosity to know how the family circle looked without him.

"Ye wait hyar, Nick, a minute, an' I'll take a peek at 'em afore I bounce in 'mongst 'em," he said. "I'm all eat up ter know what Melissy air a-doin' 'thout me."

But the sight smote the tears from his eyes when he stole around to the window and glanced in at the little group, plainly shown in the flare from the open fire.

Granny looked ten years older since morning. The three small boys, instead of popping corn or roasting apples and sweet potatoes, as was their habit in the evenings, sat in a dismal row, their chins on their freckled, sunburned hands, and their elbows on their knees, and gazed ruefully at the fire. And Melissy,--why, there was Melissy, a little blue-and-white ball curled up on the floor. Asleep? No. Barney caught the gleam of her wide-open blue eyes; but he missed something from them,--the happy expression that used to dwell there.

He went at the door with a rush. And what an uproar there was when he suddenly sprang in among them! Melissy laughed until she cried. Granny whirled and whirled her stick, and nodded convulsively, and gasped out eager questions about the trial and the "jedge." The little boys jumped for joy until they seemed strung on wire.

Soon they were popping corn and roasting apples once more. The flames roared up the chimney, and the shadows danced on the wall, and as the hours wore on, they were all so happy that when midnight came, it caught them still grouped around the fire.

[The end]
Mary Noailles Murfree's short story: The Conscripts' Hollow

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