CHAPTER X A MYSTERIOUS PEOPLE
Have you ever stepped out into a night so dark that you could scarcelysee your hand before you, and have you, after taking a few steps fromyour own doorstep, tried to imagine that you were alone in the dark inlands that were strange to you? If you have, then you can imagine thefeeling of Florence as she moved forward into the unknown. Scarcely hadthe second hand on her watch ticked round three times than she found itnecessary to follow the child by sound rather than by sight. Such is thedarkness that at times fills rockbound mountain valleys.
So, tripping over rocks, splashing into spring fed pools, slipping ondamp moss, she made her way forward. Always following the child, alwaysfollowed by the skulking figure of the boy, she came at last to a suddenturn in the road, and there, just before her, shone a mellow square ofyellow light.
"A home!" she breathed.
At that instant there came the baying challenge of a hound. He was joinedby two others, and at once the hills were roaring with echoes of theirclamor.
For a second Florence stood there trembling, irresolute. Her mind workedrapidly. To flee would be folly. There was no escaping those roaringbeasts. The treatment she might hope to receive from her bitterest enemywould be better. At once, having decided this question, she dashed towardthe light.
Hardly had she gone a dozen paces when, with a little cry of surprise andterror, she stumbled over something soft and yielding, then went downsprawling.
At once she was on hand and knees, feeling for the thing that had trippedher. In a second her hands were upon it. Not another second was needed totell her what it was.
"Hallie," she whispered. "Hallie! What has happened? Hallie! Get up!"
But the form beside her neither answered nor moved.
In desperation she groped about her for a stone. Having found two of theright size, she crouched there like a panther beside her wounded young.At the same time, in as steady a tone as she could command, she shouted:
"Hey there, you! Call off your dogs! Do you want them to murder aninnocent child?"
One instant there came a flood of light from a large door, the next thelight was blocked by the form of the largest man Florence had ever seen,and there came such a giant's roar as quite drowned the baying of thedogs and set the rocks fairly shaking with echoes.
The echoes died away and the dogs were silent. The giant did not speakagain, but stood there peering into the darkness. The girl caught thesnap-snap of a bat's jaws as he flew over. She heard the steady tick ofher watch. Then of a sudden there came a movement close behind her.Wheeling about, she tried to peer into the darkness but saw nothing.There came no other sound.
So a moment passed on into eternity, and yet another. Then the giant'svoice boomed again:
"Whoever y' be, come! Them hounds won't harm you narry bit. There's chilland right smart of mounting fever in the night air."
Rising unsteadily, a great fear tugging at her heart, Florence lifted thechild in her arms and stumbled along toward the doorway.
As she came nearer, the man turned to speak a word to someone inside andat once the light from within brought out his profile in clear relief. Amassive, full-bearded face it was, with a powerful jaw, a large hawk-likenose, and a full forehead. All this was crowned by a tangled mass of irongray hair.
Two other facts the girl noted with a shudder. The giant's right sleevehung limp at his side; in his powerful left arm he held a rifle ofgigantic proportions which might suit equally well for either firearm orclub.
"It's the one-armed giant that Ransom Turner told about!" she whisperedto herself, more frightened than ever.
Yet, mindful of the good of the child who lay limp in her arms, shetrudged sturdily on until the light from the doorway fell full upon her.
Instantly, at sight of them, a change came over the man's face. The ruddytouch to his cheek turned to ashen. He tottered as if for a fall but,gripping the doorpost, he held his ground and continued his glassy stareuntil at last words escaped his lips:
"Hit's Hallie!"
Then, and not till then, did Florence know that she had brought the childto her home.
But the giant? The moment his force of will had loosed his tongue, likesome lion who stunned by a shot comes back to life, he became aterrifying creature of tremendous action.
"Hit's her!" he roared. "They killed her!"
"She's not dead," said Florence in as calm a tone as she could command."Let me by."
Mechanically the giant moved to one side.
As Florence stepped into the room she took in the interior at a glance.It was the largest room she had seen in the mountains and its walls wereof logs. The cracks were well chinked. The floor was clean and the woodentable, on which rested three large candles, was scrubbed to a snowywhiteness. Two beds in a corner were well in order. A burned down fireglowed dully in a broad fireplace.
In the corner by the fireplace stood two women; one tall and young, withthe sturdy erectness of her kind; the other bent with age. They had risenfrom their chairs and were pointing at the child in her arms.
"They've killed her!" the giant roared again. The working of his face inrage or sorrow was a terrible thing to see. "You have killed her. Hit'senough. Give her to me." He gripped Florence's arm in a way that broughtwhite lines of pain to her face.
At that instant an astonishing thing happened. A body hurdling throughthe doorway struck the giant amidship and sent him bowling over like aten-pin. As he fell he crashed into the table and overturned it. Thethree candles cut circles through the air, then sputtered out, leavingthe place in darkness.
At once Florence's head was in a whirl. What should she do? Try toescape? Perhaps. But where was the door? She had lost her sense ofdirection. As she took a step forward her foot caught in some garmentand, loosing her hold on the child, she fell heavily.
Stunned by the fall, she lay motionless. As her wandering senses returnedshe became conscious of the beings about her. She caught the heavybreathing of the old man. No sound came from the corner by the fire. Likeall those of their race, the mountain women were neither whining norsobbing over this sudden commotion in their home, but stood stolidlywaiting the next surprising turn of fortune's wheel.
Darkness continued. Two red coals on the hearth glowed like eyes, butgave forth no light.
Suddenly, as Florence listened, she heard the sharp drawn breath of onein pain.
Who could this be? The person who had leaped through the door? Perhaps,but who was he?
All these wandering thoughts were put to flight by the sudden wail of achild.
"Hit's Hallie," said a woman's voice from the corner. "She hain't dead.Not near. Betsy Anne, make a light."
Florence heard a shuffle in that corner, sensed a groping in the dark,then saw a trembling tube of paper thrust against one of the live coals.At once the coal began to brighten.
"Someone blowing it," she thought.
Five seconds later the tube burst into bright flame, throwing fantasticshadows over the room. A few seconds more and a candle was found. Itillumined the cabin with a faint but steady light.
Scarcely knowing whether to flee or stay, Florence glanced hurriedlyaround her. The giant, having risen to his knees, was bending over thechild who was now silently sobbing. The two women were standing nearbyand in the corner was the last person Florence had expected to see.
"Bud Wax!" she exclaimed.
Then catching the look of pain on his face, she said with a look ofcompassion.
"You're hurt!"
"I--I guess it's broken," said the boy, touching the arm that hung limpat his side.
"But why--"
"I--I thought he'd hurt you, and I--I couldn't--"
"You did it for me! You--" Florence was beginning to understand, or atleast to wonder. Bud had done this--Bud, of all persons. Kin of herbitterest enemy, the boy whose choicest possession she had destroyed! Andhow had he come to be here at that moment? Her head was in a
whirl.
"There's right smart of a rock right outside the door," the boy grinned."I were a watchin' from up there an' when I seed him grab yore arm I justnaturally jumped. I reckon hit were to far."
"But if your arm is broken, it must be set."
"Yes'm, I reckon."
At that moment there was a sound of shuffling feet at the door. Turningabout, Florence found herself staring into the face of a man, a face sherecognized instantly. The beady eyes, hooked nose, unshaven chin--therecould be no mistaking him. It was he who had twice frightened Marion andat one time all but driven little Hallie into hysterics.
"What more could happen in one crowded night?" she asked herself, deep indespair.
Strangely enough, Bud Wax was the one person in the room who brought hercomfort. Oddly enough, too, the person she feared most was the one shesaw for the first time that very moment, the man at the door.
Even as she stared at this man with a fascination born of fear, the manspoke:
"What you all so shook up about?" he drawled.
"Hit's Hallie," the grizzled old man said, running his hand across hisbrow. "She's come back. They brung her back. Might nigh kilt her, Ireckon, then brung her back."
Florence's lips parted in denial, but no words came out. Her tongueseemed glued to the roof of her mouth. There she sat, staring dumbly,while a cheap nickel plated alarm clock on the mantelpiece rattled loudlyaway as if running a race with time, and faintly, from far away, therecame the notes of some bird calling to his mate in the night.
* * * * * * * *
At this moment, back in the whipsawed cabin, Marion found herself at oncehighly elated and greatly depressed.
"If only we can find the rest of them--a whole sack of them!" shewhispered excitedly to herself one moment, and the next found herselfpacing the floor, murmuring: "Where can they have gone? Why don't theycome back?"
There was no connection between the two emotions which she wasexperiencing. The first had to do with a letter which had just beenbrought to her from the little postoffice down the creek; the last withthe mysterious disappearance of Florence and Hallie.
The letter was from her friend, the curator at Field Museum. It read:
"Dear Marion:
You have made quite a find. How did you happen upon it? But then, I suppose one may find many rare articles back there in the Cumberlands so far from the main channels of commerce and life.
The gold piece you sent me is not properly a coin, but a token minted by a private individual. There are enough such tokens in bronze, but the gold ones are rare. Just why any were made is hard to tell. We know they were made, however. Two kinds are known to exist; one made in Georgia, the other in North Carolina.
You may not know it, but way back in 1830 gold was mined in Lumpkin County, Georgia, and Rutherfordton, North Carolina. Temple Reid, of Georgia, and a Mr. Bechtler of Rutherfordton, made their gold into tokens and the specimen you have found is a true sample of Georgia gold, very rare and quite valuable. Should you care to sell this one, and should you find others, I have no doubt they might be readily disposed of at something like sixty or seventy dollars for each piece."
"Sixty or seventy dollars!" Marion exclaimed as she read the letter for athird time. "At that rate a mere handful of them would be worth quite asmall fortune, and even the price of one is not to be sneered at. Itwould help toward repairing the schoolhouse."
"It wouldn't go far," smiled Mrs. McAlpin. "That schoolhouse needs a newroof, a new floor, doors, windows, blackboards and seats. Otherwise it isa very good schoolhouse. But then, what is the use of your dreaming aboutthat? Ransom Turner says the election is lost, and he should know."
"Yes, he should." A cloud spread over Marion's face as she sat down. Thecloud was replaced by a frown as she sprang to her feet to pace the floorand exclaim for the fourth time:
"Where can they have gone? Why don't they come back?"
"Have no doubt," said Mrs. McAlpin, "that they went together to a cabinfor supper or to spend the night."
They--Florence and Hallie--had indeed gone to a cabin to spend the night;but such a cabin, and such a night!
Marion knew that Mrs. McAlpin did not feel half the assurance she triedto express. Little Hallie had disappeared, leaving no trail behind.Florence had left the whipsawed cabin, saying she was going for a walkbut would return for supper. She had not returned. Darkness had come,supper time had passed. Their supper stood untouched and cold on thetable.
"I still have hopes of finding the rest of that Georgia gold," saidMarion, talking more to herself than to Mrs. McAlpin. "Perhaps it isn'tall Georgia gold. There may be some Confederate gold mixed in with it.One never can tell. It certainly would be thrilling to discover some realConfederate gold. I'm not at all satisfied with our search of the attic."
"Was there anything up there beside this one bit of gold?" On Mrs.McAlpin's face there was such an amused smile as one might expect to findthere had a child told her he meant to go in search of the pot of gold atthe foot of the rainbow.
"Nothing but a heavy old pounding mill," replied Marion.
"Why should one wish to store a pounding mill in an attic? They arealways used out of doors."
"I don't know," said the girl thoughtfully. "Might be sort of anheirloom."
"Rather ponderous I should say."
Marion caught her breath. Uncle Billie had said that old block of apounding mill was uncommonly heavy. Here was food for thought. The firstthing in the morning she would go up there. She would--
At this moment her thoughts were cut short by a sudden burst of thunderthat went rolling and reverberating down the mountain.
"We're in for a storm!" she exclaimed, dashing toward the door.
They were in for a storm indeed; such a storm as had not been known onLaurel Branch in years. For an hour Marion sat by the doorway watchingthe play of lightning as it flashed from peak to peak on Big BlackMountain. The deafening peals of thunder, like the roar of giganticcannons in some endless battle, came rumbling down from the hills toshake the very cabin floor. Through all this one thought was uppermost inMarion's mind, one question repeated itself again and again:
"Where is Florence and little Hallie?"