by Roy J. Snell
CHAPTER VIII THE SILENT WATCHER
Troubles never come singly. Florence's second shock came close on theheels of the first. Having decided to make the best of a bad situationand to allow her friends and fellow clansmen to arrange the legal battleover her trial for carrying a concealed weapon, she went to her work nextday with a brave heart.
With all her strong resolves, the look on the faces of her smallercharges came near melting her to tears. All knew of the impending trial.A few greeted her with a glassy stare. These were children of herenemies. For the most part they looked at her with such a sad andsorrowful longing as one might expect to find on the face of a motherwhose son has been ordered shot.
"Surely," Marion said to her, "being tried by a jury in the mountainsmust be a solemn affair."
"It is," said Florence, swallowing hard, "and Ransom Turner told me lastnight this was the first time in the history of the mountains that awoman has been tried for carrying concealed weapons."
"It will be a great occasion!" Marion could see the humor of thesituation. "When is it to come off?"
"Ransom says that the judge has set the trial a week from next Monday."
"That's school election day. All Laurel Branch will be there!"
"Let them come!" said Florence, a gleam of fire in her eye. "I haven'tdone anything to be ashamed of! They want a fight. We'll give them one--abattle royal! They've already lost one point; they must give me a jury.We'll make them lose some more. I shouldn't wonder if the tide would turnand the power that is higher than I would turn this bit of meanness andtrickery to our advantage."
The forenoon of that day passed much as had the earlier hours of otherdays--study and lessons, recess, then again the droning of voices blendedwith the lazy buzzing of flies and the distant songs of birds.
In spite of the quiet smoothness of the passing hours, there was in theair that ominous tenseness which one feels but cannot explain.
This was heightened fourfold by a strange occurrence. Just as Florencewas about to ring the bell after the noon hour, Marion drew her to agaping window that looked out on the upper landscape and pointed with atrembling finger to a solitary figure perched atop a giant sandstone rockthat lay in the center of a deserted clearing a few hundred yards abovethe schoolhouse.
The figure was that of a mountaineer. At that distance it would have beendifficult to have told whether he was young or old. Something about theway he sat slouching over the rifle that lay across his lap remindedFlorence of Black Blevens. An involuntary shudder shook her.
"On Lookout Rock!" she breathed.
The story of that rock they knew too well. In earlier days, when a deadlyfeud was raging up and down the creek, this rock had been the lookout forBlack Blevens' clan. There, on top of the rock, with rifle at his side, aclansman would watch the movements of his enemy. Smoke curling from adistant chimney, a woman hoeing corn in the field, the distant boom of arifle, all were signs that he read and passed on by signals to hisdistant clansmen.
"There hasn't been a watcher on that rock for years, they say," saidFlorence. Her teeth were fairly chattering.
"See! He's looking this way. Seems that he must be expecting something tohappen."
"Wha--what could it be?"
Florence stood trembling, all unnerved for one instant. Then, havingshaken herself as one will to awaken from an unpleasant dream, she becameher brave self again.
It was well she regained her courage. Fifteen minutes later, while Marionwas outside beneath a great beech tree, hearing a lesson, Florence satwatching over a study hour. On hearing a sound of commotion she looked upquickly to see her fifty children running for doors and windows. In theback of the room Bud Wax and Ballard Skidmore stood glaring at each otherand reaching for their hip pockets.
One instant the teacher's head whirled. The next that dread rumor spedthrough her brain: "Bud has been carrying his pistol gun to school."
Then, like a powerful mechanical thing, she went into action. One instantshe had leaped from the platform; the next found her half way down theaisle. Before the slow muscles of Bud's arm had carried a hand to hispocket, he felt both wrists held in a vice-like grip and a voice that wasstrange, even to the speaker herself, said:
"Ballard Skidmore, leave the room. All the rest of you take your seats."
Had Bud Wax possessed the will power to struggle, he would have foundhimself powerless in this girl's grasp. Nature had endowed her with amagnificent physique. She had neither neglected it nor abused it. Gym,when there was gym, hiking, climbing, rowing, riding, had served to keepher fit for this moment.
As Bud sank weakly to his seat he felt something slide from his pocket.
"My pistol gun," his paralized mind registered weakly. The next moment hesaw the teacher gripping the butt of that magnificent thing of blackrubber and blue steel and marching toward the front of the room.
"James Jordon," she said as she tried to still the wild beating of herheart, "go bring me two sandstones as large as your head."
"Yes, mam." James went out trembling.
Florence calmly tilted out the cylinder of the gun and allowed thecartridges to fall out. After that she stood with the weapon dangling inher hand.
When the rocks had been placed on her desk she laid the pistol on theflattest one, then lifted the other for a blow.
She did not look at Bud. She dared not. When a small child she hadpossessed a doll that was all her own. A ruthless hand had broken thedoll's head. No doll ever meant more to a girl than his first gun meantto a mountain boy.
Without looking, she felt the agony on the boy's face as the stonedescended. Without listening she heard him crumple in his seat as therubber grip broke, springs flew and the barrel bent.
When there remained only an unrecognizable mass of broken and twistedsteel, she walked slowly to the open window and dropped it out. Turning,she looked them all squarely in the eye (all but Bud, whose face was downon his desk) and said in her ordinary tune of voice:
"You may resume your lessons."
In one corner a fly, caught in a spider's web, droned complainingly. Froma nearby bush there came the liquid notes of a wild canary, while faintand from far away there came the low of a cow. Save for the occasionalswish of a turned page, no other sound disturbed the Sabbath-likestillness of the school room. And, as Florence's glance strayed to thehillside and sentinal rock, she saw that the silent watcher was gone.
Had Florence been able to open the book of the future and to read therean account of the far reaching events that were to come out of themoments that had just passed, she would have been surprised and startled.As she could not, she could only wonder, and in her heart there was afeeling of dread.
The hours that followed were filled with a strange, subdued silence. Thecareless rustle of pages was gone. Gone, too, was the uneasy shuffle offeet on the plain board floor. Children recited in tones little above awhisper. It was as if the room were empty; no children there. And yet,there they were. Florence saw them with her eyes, but when she closed hereyes she was subject to an illusion, a feeling that they had vanished.
When the last long hours had dragged its way to a weary end, the childrencrept silently away. On the soft soil their bare feet made no sound, andfrom their lips there came never a whisper.
Bud Wax was the last to leave and looking neither to right nor left, withhis head upon his breast he disappeared at once in the shadows of apaw-paw thicket.
Marion had gone ahead with some of the younger children to help themacross the river.
Florence remained behind. As the last child disappeared from sight, sheleft the schoolhouse to strike off up the leafy bank and on up thehillside until, quite out of breath from climbing, she threw herself upona soft bed of ferns to bury her face in her hands and burst out crying.
As she lay there pressing her throbbing temples, it seemed to her thatall worth while things in the world had passed away. Being only a girl,she could not fathom
the depth of emotion nor measure the flood tide ofbitterness that flowed over her soul. She only knew that at last memorycame to her rescue, the memory of an old, old story in the Bible of a manwho, having won a marvelous victory over great odds, had gone far awayinto the wilderness to at last throw himself prostrate upon the groundand ask that he might die.
As the girl recalled the story she felt that she had much in common withthis old prophet of Israel. The enemy of her school had tried to destroyit. She had defeated his end. How long she would remain victor she couldnot tell. She only knew that to-day she had won.
"And to-day," she assured herself stoutly, "is enough. Let to-morrow carefor itself."
Then of a sudden she recalled a promise. She had told Jensie Crider, oneof her most promising pupils, that she would come to her house and staythe night. She must be away at once.
An hour later found her on the shake roofed porch of a two room cabin farup on the side of Big Black Mountain. The light faded from the tallest,most distant peak as her tiny young hostess bade her shy welcome.
To one accustomed, as Florence was, to the homes of rich and fertilevalleys, this mountain cabin seemed strangely meager. Two rooms, twobeds, a table of pine boards, a fireplace hung with rows of red peppersand braids of onions, three splint bottomed chairs, a pile of home wovencoverlids in the corner, a box cupboard nailed to the wall, a few dishesin the cupboard, that was all.
And yet it was scrupulously clean. The hearth had been brushed, the floorscrubbed and sanded, the coverlids on the beds were spotless and the fewcheap stone dishes shone like imported china.
"It's something that people from the outside don't realize," Florencetold herself. "Many of these mountain folks, living here shut off fromthe world, with few tools and many difficulties, would put to shame manyof those whose opportunities have been great. Surely their childrenshould have a chance! And they shall!" She clenched her hands tight asthis thought passed through her mind. She was thinking of the comingschool election and of the things they would do if they won.
"If we win?" she whispered. "We will win! We will!"
One incident of the evening in that cabin remained long in her memory.They were at supper. Since there were but four plates and four chairs,the two younger children must wait while Jensie ate with her teacher andthe father and mother.
The meal was simple enough--corn bread baked on the hearth, fried stringbeans, a glass of wild cherry jelly and a plain cake with very littlesugar. The luxury of the meal was a plate of boiled eggs. On the rich,broad-sweeping prairies, or in cities, one thinks of eggs as staple food.In the mountains they are hoarded as a golden treasure, to be traded atthe store for calico, shoes, and other necessities of life.
But this night, in honor of the guest, Jensie had served six shiningwhite eggs. Florence saw the faces of the children glow withanticipation.
"Probably haven't had eggs for months," was her mental comment.
As she took her egg and cut it in two with her knife, it was like thebreaking of bread in sacrament.
As the meal was eaten she watched the eager eyes of the two waitingchildren. Then, of a sudden, in the eyes of those little ones, a neartragedy occurred.
"Have another egg," said the hostess to Florence, passing the plate asshe did so.
Without thinking, she put out a hand to take one. Then, of a sudden, theyoungest child threw herself flat on the floor while her little formshook with silent sobbing.
"No, I don't think I care for another," Florence said quickly, drawingback her hand just in time.
At once, with face wreathed in smiles, the little one was on her feet.
"They do this for me," thought Florence, swallowing hard. "What must Inot do for them?"
Nine o'clock found Florence safely tucked away in the bed which occupieda corner of the small living room. In the kitchen-living room slept herhost and his good wife, while from above her there came an occasionalrustle or thump that told plainer than words that the three children,having given up their bed to the teacher, had gone to sleep on the floorof the attic. Here was one more token of the unusual hospitality of thesekindly mountain people.
The ceiling, at which the girl lay staring with sleepless eyes, wasstrange indeed. In some way Jeff Crider had obtained enough mill sawedboards to cover the rough hewn beams. Some way, too, he had obtainedenough paint to cover the boards. Then, that he might produce adecorative effect, before the paint was dry he had held a smoking,globeless kerosene lamp close to the paint, and, moving about in everwidening circles, had painted there black roads that led round and roundin endless ways to nowhere.
As the girl stared at this fantastic ceiling it seemed to her that thesetracings should mean something, that they led to an important truth, atruth that she should know, and one of vast importance.
Then of a sudden it struck her all of a heap. This cabin had an attic.Mrs. McAlpin's whipsawed cabin must have one, too. There was no entrancefrom below. She was sure of that, but the attic was there all the same.
"Confederate gold," she whispered. "It must be hidden there."
So intense were her convictions on this subject that she found herselfunable to sleep.
At last, having wrapped a homespun blanket about her, she stepped intothe crisp air of the night.
The moon was just rising over Big Black Mountain. It was lighting up thescenes of another entrancing mystery, which Florence had stumbled upon afew days before.
"Who lives at the head of Laurel Branch?" she had asked Ransom Turner.
"I don't rightly know."
"Don't know!" she exclaimed.
"I reckon there ain't nobody that rightly knows except them that livesthere."
"But--but where did they come from?"
"Peers like there don't nobody rightly know."
"How very strange!" she had exclaimed. "When did they come?"
"Mebby two years back. Came from somewhere away over back of PineMounting. Quarest people you most ever seed. One man half as big as amounting, and no arm except one. Mighty onfriendly folks. Coupla men whowent up thar huntin' got scared off. Quarest folks you most ever seed."
"Perhaps that's where little Hallie came from."
"Might be. But if I was you I'd never go near thar."
Ransom had gone on to tell weird tales of these strange people, a dozenfamilies in all who had leased land from a coal company and had gone upthere beyond a natural stone gateway which appeared to shut them from therest of the world. He had told how they had stayed there, never comingdown to the settlements for barter and trade, and how they kept othermountain people away.
Other tales he had told, too; tales that had made her blood run cold.There was the story of a peddler with a pack who had gone up there atnightfall and had never been seen to return, and a one-armed fiddler whohad never come back.
"But couldn't they have gone out some other way?" she had asked.
"Narry a pass at the head of this branch, narry a one. Jest rocky ridges,so steep an' high that if you was to drop your hat from the top it wouldblow back up to you. No, Miss," he had added with a shake of his head,"don't you never go up thar!"
And yet she had somehow felt that she must and would go through thenatural gateway to the little known valley of mystery.
Now, as she stood looking at the moon that shone down upon it all, shefelt the lure stronger than ever.
"Some day," she whispered, "I will go up there. I feel sure that I must."
Little did she dream, as she stood there until the chill night air droveher inside, that in less than a week up there at the head of LaurelBranch she was to enter upon the strangest, most mysterious adventure ofher young life.
Before she fell asleep she wondered a little about the strangeexperiences that had come to her on Ages Creek. Would she ever know whythey had made her prisoner there? When would the title be proved up onthe Powell coal tract? Would it ever be? Would they get the commission?
