by Roy J. Snell
CHAPTER III A DARTING SHADOW
That same evening, just at dusk, Marion came upon a fresh and startlingmystery. She had climbed the hill at the back of the ancient whipsawedcabin which was occupied by Mrs. McAlpin and her friends.
Beside the bubbling brook that sang so softly, she had found she couldthink calmly. There was reason enough for calm thinking, too. They hadentered into this business of buying the Powell coal tract, expectingonly mild adventure and possibly a large profit. Mysterious things werehappening to Florence. She was sure of that. By the aid of the SilentAlarm she had received a message from her. The message had warned her toretreat, to return to the whipsawed cabin and wait. She had obeyed.
It was indeed very singular.
"What can have happened?" Marion now asked herself for the hundredthtime. "Wherever she may be, she can hardly be out of reach of the SilentAlarm. Darkness will find me again on the trail that leads to the crestof Pine Mountain.
"She must succeed! Must! Must!" she told herself. "And I must let herknow. I surely must!"
That very afternoon she had received information of tremendousimportance.
In the whipsawed cabin was a small radio receiving set. The long twilightof the mountains often slipped away with a score of mountain peoplesitting on the hillside listening to the sweet strains of music that camefrom this radio and floated through the open windows. At times, even inthe afternoon, they tuned in on Louisville that they might catch somenews of the outside world. On this particular afternoon, wearied from herlong hike of the previous night, Marion had been lolling half asleep onthe couch when of a sudden she sat upright, wide awake. Her ear hadcaught the words, "M. and N. Railroad."
Here might be important news. It was important, for the announcer, aftera brief pause in which he had perhaps referred to his notes, had gone on:
"At a meeting to-day of the Board of Directors of the M. and N. Railroad,it was decided that a spur would be built along the south slope of PineMountain. This work, which is to be rushed to completion within a year,will tap vast tracks of valuable coal land."
Marion had risen trembling from the couch. She had wanted to cry, tolaugh, to shout. Here was great news indeed. Coming right in from theair, it had beyond doubt given them many hours of advantage over theirrival, the agent of the Inland Coal and Coke Company.
But she had not shouted, nor had she cried nor laughed. She had climbedthe hillside and had stretched out on the leafy slope by the murmuringbrook to think.
She had decided to wait for darkness. Then she would hurry away over thefour miles that led to the crest of the low mountain. Once there shewould kindle a beacon fire.
Down deep in her heart she prayed that Florence might catch the gleam ofthat fire as she had the one of the night before, and that having caughther joyous message, she might be free to act.
"If only it would hurry and get dark!" she whispered to herself. "If onlyit would. Then I could slip up there and send the message."
But what was this? Of a sudden this all important problem was driven fromher mind. From out the clump of mountain ivy that skirted the hill abovethe whipsawed cabin there had darted a shadow.
Who could it be? No mysterious persons were known to be about, but shecould not be sure. Men hid out in these hills--rough, dangerous men whowere wanted by the law.
The cheery lamplight that suddenly burst forth through the small squarewindow of the whipsawed cabin below reassured her. There were friends inthat house, her friends Mrs. McAlpin and little Hallie.
Even as she settled back again to think of their great problems, she wasgiven another start. Outside the window, into the square of light thatpoured forth from it, there had crept the face of a man. It was not acharming face to behold, but rather an alarming one. Beneath bushyeyebrows gleamed a pair of beady black eyes. The nose was hawk-like andthe cheeks and chin were covered by a stubby beard.
It was a face to make one shudder, and Marion did shudder. She drew backas if to bury herself in the giant chestnut at her back. Even as she didso she saw the man start, saw an unuttered exclamation spring to hislips. What had he seen? What had he hoped to see? There was mysteryenough about that whipsawed cabin. Once there had been gold in it--muchgold. Preacher Gibson had hinted that it might still be there. It hadbeen brought there many years before, just after the Civil War. JeffMiddleton, who with the help of a neighbor had built the cabin, had diedsuddenly in a feud. The gold had vanished. No one, so far as was known,had ever found it.
Who was this man at the window? Did he at last have a clue to thewhereabouts of the gold, and had he come to search for it, only to findthe cabin occupied?
Little Hallie, too, was quite as mysterious as the whipsawed cabin inwhich she lived. She had been brought to the cabin door on a stormynight--a beautiful eight year old child, unconscious from an ugly blow onher head. While she was being cared for, the man who brought her hadvanished. He had not returned. That was three weeks ago. Efforts todiscover the identity of the child--other than the name "Hallie," whichhad come from her own lips--had been unavailing. Her memory appeared tohave gone with the blow on her head.
Fortunately, Mrs. McAlpin had studied medicine in her younger days. Underher efficient care Hallie had become the cheery joy of the whipsawedhouse.
Did this mysterious man know something about little Hallie? Or was hejust some wanderer looking for food and shelter? This last seemed themost probable.
Yet, as Marion came to this conclusion, she suddenly learned that thisman knew something about one member of the household, for even as she satthere he passed close enough to touch her, mumbling as he passed:
"Hit's her. Hit shorely are!"
The girl's heart went into double-quick time as the man came near to her.It slowed down very little as he vanished into the night. Questions werepounding away at her brain. Who was this man? What did he want? To whomhad he referred? To Mrs. McAlpin? To Hallie?
"Must have been Hallie," she told herself. "And now perhaps he will stealupon us unawares and carry her away."
Even as she thought this she felt that it was a foolish fear. Why shouldhe?
Then of a sudden, as a new thought struck her, she sprang to her feet. Acry was on her lips, but it died unuttered.
It had suddenly occurred to her that if this man knew something aboutthis mysterious little girl he should be called back and questioned.
She did not call him back. She was afraid, very much afraid of that man.
"Anyway," she reassured herself, "he probably didn't mean Hallie at all.Probably meant Mrs. McAlpin. She's been here three summers, and has beenup every creek for miles around."
With this as a concluding thought, and having caught the delicious odorof spring chicken roasting on the hearth, she hurried down to supper.
As she entered the cabin, Mrs. McAlpin, who was a famous cook, lifted thelid of the small cast-iron oven that had been buried beneath the hearthcoals for an hour. At once the room was filled with such delectablefragrance as only can come from such an oven.
Since the cabin had been purchased by its present owner, it had not beendisfigured by a stove. An immense stone fireplace graced the corner ofeach of the four rooms. The cooking was done on the hearth of the roomused as kitchen and dining room.
"Isn't it wonderful!" Marion exclaimed as she hung her sweater on thedeer's antlers which served as a coat rack. "Just to live like this! Tobe primitive as our ancestors were! I shall never forget it, not as longas I live!"
Supper was over. Darkness had fallen "from the wings of night" whenMarion slipped alone out of the whipsawed cabin.
As she entered the shadows that lay across the path that led away fromthe cabin, she caught sound of a movement off to the right.
Her heart skipped a beat, but she did not pause. The message she had tosend could not be longer delayed. And yet, as she hurried on, she couldnot help wondering who might have been behind the bushes. Was it theprowler, he of the bead
y black eyes and hooked nose, who had peered in atthe cabin window? If it were, what did he want? What did he mean by thatstrange exclamation: "Hit's her?" Had he seen Hallie? Did he know her?Would he attempt to carry her away? She hoped not. The little girl hadbecome a spot of sunshine in that brown old cabin.
Two hours later the proceedings of the previous night were beingre-enacted. Marion's beacon fire appeared on the mountain's crest.Florence caught it at once and flashed back her answer. There followed ahalf hour of signaling. At the end of this half hour Florence foundherself sitting breathless among the husks in the cabin loft.
"Oh!" she breathed. "What news! The railroad is to be built. I wonder ifthe land is still for sale?"
"And I," she exclaimed, squaring her shoulders, "I must be afraid nolonger. Somehow I must find my way down this slope to Caleb Powell'shome. I must buy that land."
She patted the crinkly bills, five hundred dollars, still pinned to theinside of her blouse. Then, slipping quickly down the ladder, she steppedinto the cool, damp air of night.
Yet, even as she turned to go down the mountain, courage failed her.
Above her, not so far away but that she could reach it in an hour, hungthe mountain's crest. Dim, dark, looming in the misty moonlight, itseemed somehow to beckon. Beyond it, down the trail, lay home, hermountain home, and loving friends.
She had experienced thus far only distrust, captivity without apparentcause, the great fear of worse things to come.
"No," she said, "I can't go back." Her feet moved slowly up the trail.
"And yet I must!" She faced the other way. "I can't go back and say tothem, 'I have no money for the school. I went on a mission and failedbecause I was afraid.' No, No! I can't do that."
Then, lest this last resolve should fail her, she fairly ran down thetrail.
She had hurried on for fully fifteen minutes when again she paused,paused this time to consider. What plan had she? What was she to do? Shedid not know the way to the home of her friend, nor to the home of CalebPowell. Indeed, she did not so much as know where she was. How, then, wasshe to find Caleb Powell?
"Only one way," she told herself. "I must risk it. At some cabin I mustinquire my way."
Fifteen minutes later she found herself near a cabin. A dim light shonein the window. For a moment she hesitated beside the footpath that led toits door.
"No," she said at last, starting on, "I won't try that one."
She passed three others before her courage rose to the sticking point. Atlast, realizing that the evening was well spent and that all would soonbe in bed, she forced herself to walk boldly toward a cabin. A greatbellowing hound rushed out at her and sent her heart to her mouth. Thewelcome sound of a man's voice silenced him.
"Who's thar?" the voice rang out.
"It's--it's I, Florence Huyler." The girl's voice trembled in spite ofher effort to control it.
"Let's see." The man held a candle to her face. "Step inside, Miss."
"It--I--I can't stop," she stammered, "I--I only wanted to ask whereCaleb Powell lives."
"Hey, Bill," the man turned to someone within the cabin. "Here's thatgirl we was lookin' for this evenin'."
"Naw 't'ain't. Don't stand to reason." The man's feet came to the floorwith a crash. The girl's heart sank. She recognized the voices of themen. They were the men who had visited the deserted cabin. The hollyhocksentinel had done their bit, but all to no purpose. She was once morevirtually a prisoner.
"Guess you come to the wrong cabin, Miss. We are plumb sorry, but hit areour bond an' duty to sort of ask you to come in and rest with we-all aspell. Reckon you ain't et none. Hey, Mandy! Set on a cold snack for thishere young lady."
Florence walked slowly into the cabin and sank wearily into a chair. Herhead, which seemed suddenly to grow heavy, sank down upon her breast. Shehad meant so well, and this was what fate had dealt her.
Suddenly, as she sat there filled with gloomy thoughts, came one gloomierthan the rest--a thought as melancholy as a late autumn storm.
"Why did we not think of that?" she almost groaned aloud.
She recalled it well enough now. Mrs. McAlpin had once told her of thequeer mixing of titles to land which existed all over the mountains. Inthe early days, when land was all but worthless, a man might trade athousand acres of land for a yoke of oxen and no deed given or recorded."Why," Mrs. McAlpin had said, "when I purchased the little tract on whichthis cabin stands I was obliged to wait an entire year before my lawyerwas able to assure me of a deed that would hold."
"A year!" Florence repeated to herself. "A year for a small tract! Andhere we are hoping to purchase a tract containing thousands of acreswhich was once composed of numerous small tracts. And we hope to get adeed day after to-morrow, and our commission a day later." She laughed inspite of herself.
"If we succeed in making the purchase, which doesn't seem at all likely,Mr. Dobson may be two years getting a clear title to the land. Will hepay our commission before that? No one would expect it. And if we don'tget it before that time what good will it do our school?"
"No," she told herself, facing the problem squarely, "there must be someother way; though I'll still go through with this if opportunity offers."
In her mental search for "some other way" her thoughts returned to theancient whipsawed house on Laurel Branch. She had heard old preacherGibson's story of Jeff Middleton's return from the Civil War with a greatsack of strange gold pieces.
"Hit's hid som'ers about that ar whipsawed cabin," the tottering oldmountain preacher had declared, "though whar it might be I don't rightlyknow. Been a huntin' of it right smart o' times and ain't never lit ontonarry one of them coins yet."
"If only we could find that gold," Florence told herself, "all would bewell. That is, if we win the election--if we elect our trustee."
She smiled a little at this last thought; yet it was no joking matter,this electing a trustee back here in the Cumberlands. Many a grave on thesun kissed hillsides, where the dogwood blooms in springtime and ripechestnuts come rattling down in the autumn, marks the spot where somelusty mountaineer lies buried. And it might be written on his tombstone,"He tried to elect a trustee and failed because the other man's pistolgun found its mark." Elections are hard fought in the Cumberlands. Many abitter feud fight has been started over a school election.
Surely, as she sat there once more a prisoner, held by these mysteriousmountaineers, there was enough to disturb her.
