A Knight of the Cumberland

II. On the Wild Dog's Trail

So up we went past Bee Rock, Preacher's Creek and Little Looney, past the mines where high on a ``tipple'' stood the young engineer looking down at us, and looking after the Blight as we passed on into a dim rocky avenue walled on each side with rhododendrons. I waved at him and shook my head--we would see him coming back. Beyond a deserted log- cabin we turned up a spur of the mountain. Around a clump of bushes we came on a gray-bearded mountaineer holding his horse by the bridle and from a covert high above two more men appeared with Winchesters. The Blight breathed forth an awed whisper:

``Are they moonshiners?''

I nodded sagely, ``Most likely,'' and the Blight was thrilled. They might have been squirrel-hunters most innocent, but the Blight had heard much talk of moonshine stills and mountain feuds and the men who run them and I took the risk of denying her nothing. Up and up we went, those two mules swaying from side to side with a motion little short of elephantine and, by and by, the Blight called out:

``You ride ahead and don't you dare look back.''

Accustomed to obeying the Blight's orders, I rode ahead with eyes to the front. Presently, a shriek made me turn suddenly. It was nothing--my little sister's mule had gone near a steep cliff--perilously near, as its rider thought, but I saw why I must not look back; those two little girls were riding astride on side-saddles, the booted little right foot of each dangling stirrupless--a posture quite decorous but ludicrous.

``Let us know if anybody comes,'' they cried. A mountaineer descended into sight around a loop of the path above.

``Change cars,'' I shouted.

They changed and, passing, were grave, demure--then they changed again, and thus we climbed.

Such a glory as was below, around and above us; the air like champagne; the sunlight rich and pouring like a flood on the gold that the beeches had strewn in the path, on the gold that the poplars still shook high above and shimmering on the royal scarlet of the maple and the sombre russet of the oak. From far below us to far above us a deep curving ravine was slashed into the mountain side as by one stroke of a gigantic scimitar. The darkness deep down was lighted up with cool green, interfused with liquid gold. Russet and yellow splashed the mountain sides beyond and high up the maples were in a shaking blaze. The Blight's swift eyes took all in and with indrawn breath she drank it all deep down.

An hour by sun we were near the top, which was bared of trees and turned into rich farm-land covered with blue-grass. Along these upland pastures, dotted with grazing cattle, and across them we rode toward the mountain wildernesses on the other side, down into which a zigzag path wriggles along the steep front of Benham's spur. At the edge of the steep was a cabin and a bushy-bearded mountaineer, who looked like a brigand, answered my hail. He ``mought'' keep us all night, but he'd ``ruther not, as we could git a place to stay down the spur.'' Could we get down before dark? The mountaineer lifted his eyes to where the sun was breaking the horizon of the west into streaks and splashes of yellow and crimson.

``Oh, yes, you can git thar afore dark.''

Now I knew that the mountaineer's idea of distance is vague--but he knows how long it takes to get from one place to another. So we started down--dropping at once into thick dark woods, and as we went looping down, the deeper was the gloom. That sun had suddenly severed all connection with the laws of gravity and sunk, and it was all the darker because the stars were not out. The path was steep and coiled downward like a wounded snake. In one place a tree had fallen across it, and to reach the next coil of the path below was dangerous. So I had the girls dismount and I led the gray horse down on his haunches. The mules refused to follow, which was rather unusual. I went back and from a safe distance in the rear I belabored them down. They cared neither for gray horse nor crooked path, but turned of their own devilish wills along the bushy mountain side. As I ran after them the gray horse started calmly on down and those two girls shrieked with laughter--they knew no better. First one way and then the other down the mountain went those mules, with me after them, through thick bushes, over logs, stumps and bowlders and holes--crossing the path a dozen times. What that path was there for never occurred to those long-eared half asses, whole fools, and by and by, when the girls tried to shoo them down they clambered around and above them and struck the path back up the mountain. The horse had gone down one way, the mules up the other, and there was no health in anything. The girls could not go up--so there was nothing to do but go down, which, hard as it was, was easier than going up. The path was not visible now. Once in a while I would stumble from it and crash through the bushes to the next coil below. Finally I went down, sliding one foot ahead all the time--knowing that when leaves rustled under that foot I was on the point of going astray. Sometimes I had to light a match to make sure of the way, and thus the ridiculous descent was made with those girls in high spirits behind. Indeed, the darker, rockier, steeper it got, the more they shrieked from pure joy--but I was anything than happy. It was dangerous. I didn't know the cliffs and high rocks we might skirt and an unlucky guidance might land us in the creek-bed far down. But the blessed stars came out, the moon peered over a farther mountain and on the last spur there was the gray horse browsing in the path--and the sound of running water not far below. Fortunately on the gray horse were the saddle-bags of the chattering infants who thought the whole thing a mighty lark. We reached the running water, struck a flock of geese and knew, in consequence, that humanity was somewhere near. A few turns of the creek and a beacon light shone below. The pales of a picket fence, the cheering outlines of a log-cabin came in view and at a peaked gate I shouted:

``Hello!''

You enter no mountaineer's yard without that announcing cry. It was mediaeval, the Blight said, positively--two lorn damsels, a benighted knight partially stripped of his armor by bush and sharp-edged rock, a gray palfrey (she didn't mention the impatient asses that had turned homeward) and she wished I had a horn to wind. I wanted a ``horn'' badly enough --but it was not the kind men wind. By and by we got a response:

``Hello!'' was the answer, as an opened door let out into the yard a broad band of light. Could we stay all night? The voice replied that the owner would see ``Pap.'' ``Pap'' seemed willing, and the boy opened the gate and into the house went the Blight and the little sister. Shortly, I followed.

There, all in one room, lighted by a huge wood-fire, rafters above, puncheon floor beneath--cane-bottomed chairs and two beds the only furniture-``pap,'' barefooted, the old mother in the chimney- corner with a pipe, strings of red pepper- pods, beans and herbs hanging around and above, a married daughter with a child at her breast, two or three children with yellow hair and bare feet all looking with all their eyes at the two visitors who had dropped upon them from another world. The Blight's eyes were brighter than usual--that was the only sign she gave that she was not in her own drawing- room. Apparently she saw nothing strange or unusual even, but there was really nothing that she did not see or hear and absorb, as few others than the Blight can.

Straightway, the old woman knocked the ashes out of her pipe.

``I reckon you hain't had nothin' to eat,'' she said and disappeared. The old man asked questions, the young mother rocked her baby on her knees, the children got less shy and drew near the fireplace, the Blight and the little sister exchanged a furtive smile and the contrast of the extremes in American civilization, as shown in that little cabin, interested me mightily.

``Yer snack's ready,'' said the old woman. The old man carried the chairs into the kitchen, and when I followed the girls were seated. The chairs were so low that their chins came barely over their plates, and demure and serious as they were they surely looked most comical. There was the usual bacon and corn-bread and potatoes and sour milk, and the two girls struggled with the rude fare nobly.

After supper I joined the old man and the old woman with a pipe--exchanging my tobacco for their long green with more satisfaction probably to me than to them, for the long green was good, and strong and fragrant.

The old woman asked the Blight and the little sister many questions and they, in turn, showed great interest in the baby in arms, whereat the eighteen-year-old mother blushed and looked greatly pleased.

``You got mighty purty black eyes,'' said the old woman to the Blight, and not to slight the little sister she added, `` An' you got mighty purty teeth.''

The Blight showed hers in a radiant smile and the old woman turned back to her.

``Oh, you've got both,'' she said and she shook her head, as though she were thinking of the damage they had done. It was my time now--to ask questions.

They didn't have many amusements on that creek, I discovered--and no dances. Sometimes the boys went coon-hunting and there were corn-shuckings, house-raisings and quilting-parties.

``Does anybody round here play the banjo?''

``None o' my boys,'' said the old woman, ``but Tom Green's son down the creek --he follers pickin' the banjo a leetle.'' ``Follows pickin' ''--the Blight did not miss that phrase.

``What do you foller fer a livin'?'' the old man asked me suddenly.

``I write for a living.'' He thought a while.

``Well, it must be purty fine to have a good handwrite.'' This nearly dissolved the Blight and the little sister, but they held on heroically.

``Is there much fighting around here?'' I asked presently.

``Not much 'cept when one young feller up the river gets to tearin' up things. I heerd as how he was over to the Gap last week--raisin' hell. He comes by here on his way home.'' The Blight's eyes opened wide--apparently we were on his trail. It is not wise for a member of the police guard at the Gap to show too much curiosity about the lawless ones of the hills, and I asked no questions.

``They calls him the Wild Dog over here,'' he added, and then he yawned cavernously.

I looked around with divining eye for the sleeping arrangements soon to come, which sometimes are embarrassing to ``furriners'' who are unable to grasp at once the primitive unconsciousness of the mountaineers and, in consequence, accept a point of view natural to them because enforced by architectural limitations and a hospitality that turns no one seeking shelter from any door. They were, however, better prepared than I had hoped for. They had a spare room on the porch and just outside the door, and when the old woman led the two girls to it, I followed with their saddle-bags. The room was about seven feet by six and was windowless.

``You'd better leave your door open a little,'' I said, ``or you'll smother in there.''

``Well,'' said the old woman, `` hit's all right to leave the door open. Nothin's goin' ter bother ye, but one o' my sons is out a coon-huntin' and he mought come in, not knowin' you're thar. But you jes' holler an' he'll move on.'' She meant precisely what she said and saw no humor at all in such a possibility--but when the door closed, I could hear those girls stifling shrieks of laughter.

Literally, that night, I was a member of the family. I had a bed to myself (the following night I was not so fortunate)-- in one corner; behind the head of mine the old woman, the daughter-in-law and the baby had another in the other corner, and the old man with the two boys spread a pallet on the floor. That is the invariable rule of courtesy with the mountaineer, to give his bed to the stranger and take to the floor himself, and, in passing, let me say that never, in a long experience, have I seen the slightest consciousness-- much less immodesty--in a mountain cabin in my life. The same attitude on the part of the visitors is taken for granted--any other indeed holds mortal possibilities of offence--so that if the visitor has common sense, all embarrassment passes at once. The door was closed, the fire blazed on uncovered, the smothered talk and laughter of the two girls ceased, the coon-hunter came not and the night passed in peace.

It must have been near daybreak that I was aroused by the old man leaving the cabin and I heard voices and the sound of horses' feet outside. When he came back he was grinning.

``Hit's your mules.''

``Who found them?''

``The Wild Dog had 'em,'' he said.