IV
THE NIGHT RIDE
He left the great room for his own cabin at the usual hour. No one butRuth observed his going. She smiled at him as he passed, and caught hishand and gave it a little teasing, affectionate squeeze. He must leave"The Famous History of Montilion" unread for one night,--so shesaid,--and he must go to bed at once, since he was to be up before thesun. These little ways of Ruth's were usually very sweet to him, but hedid not find them so that night. He made no reply, and looked at hergravely, without an answering smile. Had anything been needed to fix hispurpose, this gentle raillery would have been more than enough.
He went straight from the door of Cedar House to the stable under thehill, stopping at his cabin only long enough to get his rifle. Thestable was very dark within, but he knew where to find the pony that healways rode, and the saddle and bridle which he always used, withoutneeding to see. And the pony knew him, too, for all the darkness, andwelcomed him with a friendly whinny which said so as plainly as words.For the boy and the pony were good friends, and moreover theyunderstood one another perfectly, which is rarely the case with the bestof friends. And then they were both foundlings, and that may have madeanother bond between them. The pony had been a wild colt caught in theforest on the other side of the river. Nothing was known of hisancestors, although they were supposed by those who knew best, to havebeen the worn-out horses of good blood which had been deserted in thewilderness by the Spaniards. But then everything cruel was laid at thedoor of the hated Spaniards in those days, when they had so lately beenforced to take their throttling grasp from the throat of the BeautifulRiver. The pony certainly bore no outward mark of noble ancestry. He wasa homely, humble, rough-coated little beast. Yet David liked him betterthan all the other finer horses in the judge's stables, notwithstandingthat some of these had real pedigrees; for good horses were alreadyappearing in Kentucky. The judge allowed David to claim the pony as hisown. Robert Knox was a kind man when he did not forget, and he neverforgot any one without forgetting himself,--first and most of all,--ashe did sometimes.
David always thought of the pony as an orphan like himself, and his ownbruised feelings were very tender toward the friendless little fellow.He led him from the stable now as a mark of respect and because it wasdark; for he knew that the pony, with a word, would follow him anywhere,at any time, like a faithful dog. It was not quite so dark outside, andspringing into the saddle, the boy bent down and stroked the rough neckand the tangled mane that no brush could ever make smooth. The ponylifted his head to meet the caress, and then these two orphans of thewilderness looked out dimly, wondering, over this wonderful new countryinto which both were come, without knowing how or why or whence, throughno will or choice of their own.
That portion of Kentucky rises gently but steadily from the river, androlls gradually upward toward its eastern hills. On this October nightso close to the very beginning of the commonwealth, these terraced hillswere still covered with the primeval forest. Hill after hill, and forestafter forest, on and on and higher and higher, till the earth and theheavens came together. Near the river on the natural open spaces, andwhere earliest the clearings had been made, the boy could see the widelyscattered rude homes, the young orchards, and the new fields, which thefirst Kentuckians had won from the wilderness, from the savage, from thewild beast and the pestilence. Southward, and a long way off, lay thegreat Cypress Swamp. The wavering sable line of its tree-tops spread apall across the starless horizon. The deadly white mists which shroudedits gloomy mystery through the sunniest day were now creeping out toenshroud the higher land. Through the mingled mist and darkness thesombre trunks of the towering cypress trees rose with supernaturalblackness. The mysterious "knees," those strange, naked, blackenedroots, so wildly gnarled and twisted about the foot of the cypress,appeared to writhe out of the swamp's awful dimness like monstrousserpents seen in a dreadful dream.
And thus these dark fancies swayed the boy's imagination as wind swaysflame, till he suddenly remembered and turned from them more quickly andfirmly than ever before. He had made up his mind to cease dreaming withhis eyes open. He was resolved to see only real sights and to hear onlyreal sounds from this time on. He did not deceive himself by thinkingthat this ever could be easy for him to do. He knew too well that inplace of the cool, steady common-sense which should dwell in every man'sbreast, there dwelt something strangely hot and restless in his own. Hehad always felt this difference without understanding it; but he hadhoped that no one else knew it--up to the cruel revelation of Ruth'slaughing and kindly meant words. Well, neither Ruth nor any one shouldever again have cause to laugh at him for romantic weakness, if he mighthelp it by keeping guard over his fancy.
He therefore sternly kept his eyes away from the swamp where mysteryalways brooded. He would not look at the wonderful mound near the swamp,which he never before had passed without wonder. It was then--as it isnow--such an amazing monument to a vanished race. It is so unaccountablyplaced, this mountain of earth in the midst of level lowlands; soastounding in size and so unmistakably the work of unknown human hands.Never till that night had David's fervid imagination turned toward itwithout his beginning forthwith to wonder over the secrets of the ageswhich lie buried beneath. He had hitherto always thought of this moundin association with the mysterious blazed trail through the forest. Butthat was much farther off and more directly south, and no one but theboy had ever found any connection between the two. He, dreaming, wouldsometimes imagine that the same vanished race had marked the paththrough the forest by cutting the trees on either side--this marvellousblazed trail which De Soto is sometimes said to have found when he came,and again to have made himself, regardless of the fact that history doesnot mention his being anywhere near. The romance of the buried treasurewhich this mystic path was believed to lead to, perpetually held Davidunder a spell of enchantment. But he would not allow himself to lingerover these mysteries now. He also resisted the horrible fascination ofthe Dismal Slough--that long, frightful black pit--linking the swamp tothe river. And most of all he shrunk from giving a thought or a glancetoward the gloom hanging over Duff's Fort, which was still farther off,and the strongest, most bloody link in the long and unbroken chain ofcrime then stretching clear across southwestern Kentucky.
As these uneasy thoughts thronged, a faint sound borne by the windcaused him to turn his head with a nervous start, and he saw somethingmoving in the deeper darkness that surrounded the swamp. He pulled upthe pony, tightening his grip on the rifle, and strained his eyes,trying to make out what this moving object was. The wavering mists werevery thick, and he thought at first that it might be nothing worse thana denser gathering of the deadly vapor creeping out of the swamp. Thefog suddenly fell like a heavy curtain, and he could see nothing. Andthen lifting again, it gave him a fleeting glimpse of a body of horsemenriding rapidly in the edge of the forest, as if seeking the shadow ofthe trees. He could see only the black outline of the swiftly movingshapes, but he knew that they must be part of the band which was fillingthe whole country with terror, violence, and death. None other could beriding at night toward Duff's Fort. He thought of the money in hispocket, and felt the thumping of his heart as his hand involuntarilywent up to touch it, making sure that it was still safe. He satmotionless--scarcely daring to breathe--watching the shadows till hesuddenly realized with a breath of relief that they were going the otherway, in the opposite direction from his own road. And then after waitingand watching a little longer, in order to make sure that they were outof sight, he rode on.
The courage and calmness which he had found in himself under this test,heartened him and made him the more determined to control his wanderingfancy. Looking now neither to the right nor the left, he pressed onthrough the clearing toward the buffalo track in the border of theforest which would lead him into the Wilderness Road. Sternly settinghis thoughts on the errand that was taking him to the salt-works, hebegan to think of the place in which they were situated, and to wonderwhy so bare, so brown, and so desolate a
spot should have been calledGreen Lick. There was no greenness about it, and not the slightest signthat there ever had been any verdure, although it still lay in the veryheart of an almost tropical forest. It must surely have been as it wasnow since time immemorial. Myriads of wild beasts coming and goingthrough numberless centuries to drink the salt water, had trodden theearth around it as hard as iron, and had worn it down far below thesurface of the surrounding country. The boy had seen it often, butalways by daylight, and never alone, so that he noted many things nowwhich he had not observed before. The huge bison must have gone overthat well-beaten track one by one, to judge by its narrowness. He couldsee it dimly, running into the clearing like a black line beginning faroff between the bordering trees; but as he looked, the darknessdeepened, the mists thickened, and a look of unreality came overfamiliar objects. And then through the wavering gloom there suddenlytowered a great dark mass topped by something which rose against thewild dimness like a colossal blacksmith's anvil. It might have beenVulcan's own forge, so strange and fabulous a thing it seemed! The boy'sheart leaped with his pony's leap. His imagination spread its swiftwings ere he could think; but in another instant he reminded himself.This was not an awful apparition, but a real thing, wondrous andunaccountable enough in its reality. It was Anvil Rock--a great,solitary rock--rising abruptly from the reckless loam of a levelcountry, and lifting its single peak, rudely shaped like a blacksmith'sanvil, straight up toward the clouds. It was already serving as alandmark in the wilderness, and must continue so to serve all thatportion of Kentucky, so long as the levelling hand of man may bewithheld from one of the natural wonders of the world.
Beyond Anvil Rock the night grew blacker. When David reached the buffalotrack he could no longer see even dimly, the forest closing densely inon both sides of the narrow path, and arching darkly overhead.Instinctively he put up his hand again and touched the money in hisbreast pocket. His grasp on the rifle unconsciously grew firmer, but heloosed the bridle-rein for a moment to pat the pony. The little beastentered the shadows of the trees without a tremor; yet there weredangers therein for him no less than for his rider, and his excitedbreathing told that he knew this quite as well as his master. It was sodark that neither could see the path, and the boy was trusting more tothe pony than to himself, as they went swiftly forward through the stilldarkness of the forest. The pony's unshod feet made scarcely a sound onthe soft, moist earth. There had been no frost to thin the thickbranches hanging low over their heads. The few leaves which had drifteddown were still unwithered, and only made the hoof-beats more soundlesson the yielding earth, so that there was not a rustle at the noiselesspassing of the pony and his rider. Only a sudden gust of wind now andthen sent a murmur through the dark tree-tops and gently swayed thesombre boughs. And so they sped on, drawing nearer and nearer to theWilderness Road, till presently the wind brought the strong odor ofboiling salt water. The woods became now still further darkened andentangled by many fallen trees which had been felled to make fuel forthe furnaces, and by huge heaps of logs piled ready for burning. Hereand there were great whitening giants of the forest still standingafter they had been slain, as soldiers--death-stricken--stand for aninstant on the field of battle. It seemed to the fanciful boy that thewind sighed most mournfully among these wan ghosts of trees, and thatthe dead boughs, moved by the sighing wind, smote one another withinfinite sadness.
There was no sound other than this moaning of the wind through theforest and the muffled beating of the pony's feet on the leaf-coveredpath. Once a great owl flew across the dark way with a deadened beatingof his heavy wings. Again wolves howled, but so far in the distance thatthe sound came as the faintest echo. A stronger gust of the fitful windfilled the forest with the sulphurous vapors arising from theevaporating furnaces. A moment more, and the vivid glare of the firesflared luridly through the wild tangle of the undergrowth. Against thisred glare many black shadows--the dark forms of the firemen--could nowbe indistinctly seen moving like evil spirits around the smoking,flaming pits.
It was a wild, strange sight, wild and strange enough to fire a coolerfancy than David's. He forgot his errand, forgot the money, forgot wherehe was--everything but the romance of the scene which had taken himcaptive. Every nerve in his tense young body was strung like the cord ofa harp; his young heart was beating as if a heavy hammer swung in hisbreast. And then, without so much as the warning rustle of a leaf or asound more alarming than the sigh of the wind, two blurred black shapesburst out of the forest upon him.