Kerry began to go forward by inches. He was weary as only a town-bred man,used to the leisurely patrolling of pavements, could be after strugglingobliquely up and across the pathless flank of Big Turkey Track Mountain,and then climbing to this eyrie upon Old Yellow Bald--Old Yellow, the peakthat reared its "Bald" of golden grass far above the ranges of The Big andLittle Turkey Tracks.
"Lord, how hungry I am!" he breathed. "I bet the feller's got grub inthere." He had been out two days. He was light-headed from lack of food; atthe thought of it nervous caution gave way to mere brute instinct, and heplunged recklessly into the cave. Inside, the sudden darkness blinded himfor a moment. Then there began to be visible in one corner a bed of brackenand sweet-fern; in another an orderly arrangement of tin cans upon a shelf,and the ashes of a fire, where sat a Dutch oven. The sight of this lastwhetted Kerry's hunger; he almost ran to the shelf, and groaned as he foundthe first can filled with gunpowder, the next with shot, and the thirdcontaining some odds and ends of string and nails.
He had knelt to inspect a rude box, when a little sound caused him to turn.In the doorway was a figure which raised the hair upon his head, with achilly sensation at its roots--a tall man, with a great mane of black locksblowing unchecked about his shoulders. He stood turned away from Kerry,having halted in the doorway as though to take a last advantage of theouter daylight upon some object of interest to him before entering. He wasexamining one of his own hands, and a little shivering moan escaped him. Arifle rested in the hollow of his arm; Kerry could see the outline of a bignavy-pistol in his belt; and as the man shifted, another came to view;while the Irishman's practised eye did not miss the handle of a long knifein its sheath. It went swiftly through his mind that those who sent him onthis errand should have warned him of the size of the quarry. Suddenly,almost without his own volition, he found himself saying: "I ask yourpardon. I was dead beat an' fair famished, an' I crawled in here to--"
The tall figure in the doorway turned like a thing on a pivot; he did notstart, nor spin round, as a slighter or more nervous person might havedone; and a strange chill fell upon Kerry's heat when the man, whom herecognized as that one he had come to seek, faced him. The big, dark eyeslooked the intruder up and down; what their owner thought of him, what hedecided concerning him, could no more be guessed than the events of nextyear. In a full, grave voice, but one exceedingly gentle, the owner of thecave repaired the lack of greeting.
"Howdy, stranger?" he said. "I never seen you as I come up, 'count o'havin' snagged my hand on this here gun."
He came toward Kerry with the bleeding member outstretched. Now was theIrishman's time--by all his former resolutions, by the need he had for thatmoney reward--to deftly handcuff the outlaw. What he did was to draw theother toward the daylight, examine the hand, which was torn and laceratedon the gun-hammer, and with sundry exclamations of sympathy proceed to bindit up with strips torn from his own handkerchief.
"Snagged!" he echoed, as he noted how the great muscle of the thumb wastorn across. "I don't see how you ever done that on a gun-hammer. I'venursed a good bit--I was in Cuby last year, an' I was detailed for juty inthe hospital more'n half my time," he went on, eagerly. "This here hand,it's bad, 'cause it's torn. Ef you had a cut o' that size, now, youwouldn't be payin' no 'tention to it. The looks o' this here reminds me o'the tear one o' them there Mauser bullets makes--Gawd! but they rip the menup shockin'!" He rambled on with uneasy volubility as he attended to thewound. "You let me clean it, now. It'll hurt some, but it'll save yetrouble after while. You set down on the bed. Where kin I git some water?"
"Thar's a spring round the turn in the cave thar--they's a go'd in it."
But Kerry took one of the tin cans, emptied and rubbed it nervously,talking all the while--talking as though to prevent the other fromspeaking, and with something more than the ordinary garrulity of the nurse."I got lost to-day," he volunteered, as he cleansed the wound skilfully anddrew its ragged lips together. "Gosh! but you tore that thumb up! You won'thardly be able to do nothin' with that hand fer a spell. Yessir! I gotlost--that's what I did. One tree looks pretty much like another to me; andone old rock it's jest the same as the next one. I reckon I've walkedtwenty mile sence sunup."
He paused in sudden panic; but the other did not ask him whence he hadwalked nor whither he was walking. Instead, he ventured, in his serioustones, as the silence grew oppressive: "You're mighty handy 'bout this sorto' thing. I reckon I'll have a tough time here alone till that hand heals."
"Oh, I'll stay with you a while," Kerry put in, hastily. "I ain't a-goin'on, a-leavin' a man in sech a fix, when I ain't got nothin' in particularto do an' nowheres in particular to go," he concluded, rather lamely.
His host's eyes dwelt on him. "Well, now, that'd be mighty kind in you,stranger," he began, gently; and added, with the mountaineer's deathlesshospitality, "You're shorely welcome."
In Kerry's pocket a pair of steel handcuffs clicked against each other. Anymoment of the time that he was dressing the outlaw's hand, identifying atshort range a dozen marks enumerated in the description furnished him, hecould have snapped them upon those great wrists and made his host hisprisoner. Yet, an hour later, when the big man had told him of a string offish tied down in the branch, of a little cellarlike contrivance by thespring which contained honeycomb and some cold corn-pone, the two men satat supper like brothers.
"Ye don't smoke?" inquired Kerry, commiseratingly, as his host twisted offa great portion of home-cured tobacco. "Lord! ye'll never know what theweed is till ye burn it. A chaw'll do when you're in the trenches an'afraid to show the other fellers where to shoot, so that ye dare not smoke.Ah-h-h! I've had it taste like nectar to me then; but tobacco's nevertobacco till it's burnt," and the Irishman smiled fondly upon his stumpyblack pipe.
They sat and talked over the fire (for a fire is good company in themountains, even of a midsummer evening) with that freedom and abandon whichthe isolation, the hour, and the circumstances begot. Kerry had told hisname, his birthplace, the habits and temperament of his parents, hispresent hopes and aspirations--barring one; he had even sketched an outlineof Katy--Katy, who was waiting for him to save enough to buy that littlefarm in the West; and his host, listening in the unbroken silence of deepsympathy, had not yet offered even so much as his name.
Then the bed was divided, a bundle of fern and pine boughs being disposedin the opposite corner of the cave for the newcomer's accommodation. Later,after good-nights had been exchanged and Kerry fancied that his host wasasleep, he himself stirred, sat up, and being in uneasy need of informationas to whether the cave door should not be stopped in some manner, openedwith a hesitating, "Say!"
"You might jest call me Andy," the deep voice answered, before themountain-man negatived the proposition of adding a front door to thehabitation.
Kerry slept again. Mountain air and weariness are drugs potent against abad conscience, and it was broad daylight outside the cave when he wakened.He was a little surprised to find his host still sleeping, yet hisexperience told him that the wound was of a nature to induce fever,followed by considerable exhaustion. As the Irishman lifted his coat fromwhere he had had it folded into a bundle beneath his head, the handcuffs inthe pocket clicked, and he frowned. He stole across to look at the man whohad called himself Andy, lying now at ease upon his bed of leaves, onegreat arm underneath his head, the injured hand nursed upon his broadbreast. Those big eyes which had so appalled Kerry upon a first viewyesterday were closed. The onlooker noted with a sort of wonder howsumptuous were the fringes of their curtains, long and purple--black, likethe thick, arched brows above. To speak truly, Kerry, although he was arespectable member of the police force, had the artistic temperament. Theharmony of outline, the justness of proportion in both the face and figureof the man before him, filled the Irishman with delight; and the splendidvirile bulk of the mountain-man appealed irresistibly to the other'smasculinity. The little threads of silver in the tempestuous black curlsseemed to Kerry but to set off their beauty.
"Gosh! but you're a good-looker!" he muttered. And putting his estimate ofthe man's charm into such form as was possible to him, he added, under hisbreath, "I'd hate to have seen a feller as you tryin' to court my Katy."
This was the first of many strange days; golden September days they were,cool and full of the ripened beauty of the departing summer. Kerry's hosttaught him to snare woodcock and pheasants--shoot them the Irishman couldnot, since the excitement of the thing made him fire wild.
"Now ain't that the very divil!" he would cry, after he had let his thirdbird get away unharmed. "Ef I was shootin' at a man, I'd be as stiddy as aclock. Gad! I'd be cool as an ice-wagon. But when that little old brownchicken scoots a-scutterin' up out o' the grass like a hummin'-top, itrattles me." His teacher apparently took no note of the significancecontained in this statement; yet Kerry's very ears were red as it slippedout, and he felt uneasily for the handcuffs, which no longer clinked in hispocket, but now lay carefully hidden under his fern bed.
There had been a noon-mark in the doorway of the cave, thrown by the shadowof a boulder beside it, even before the Irishman's big nickel watch camewith its bustling, authoritative tick to bring the question of time intothe mountains. But the two men kept uncertain hours: sometimes they talkedmore than half the night, the close-cropped, sandy poll and the unshorncrest of Jove-like curls nodding at each other across the fire, then sleptfar into the succeeding day; sometimes they were up before dawn and offafter squirrels--with which poor Kerry had no better luck than with thebirds. Every day the Irishman dressed his host's hand; and every day hetasted more fully the charm of this big, strong, gentle, peaceful natureclad in its majestic garment of flesh.
"If he'd 'a' been an ugly, common-looking brute, I'd 'a' nabbed him in aminute," he told himself, weakly. And every day the handcuffs under thedried fern-leaves lay heavier upon his soul.
On the 20th of September, which Kerry had set for his last day in the cave,he was moved to begin again at the beginning and tell the big mountaineerall his affairs.
"Ye see, it's like this," he wound up: "Katy--the best gurrl an' thepurtiest I ever set me two eyes on--she's got a father that'll strike herwhen the drink's with him. He works her like a dog, hires her out and takesevery cent she earns. Her mother--God rest her soul!--has been dead thesetwo years. And now the old man is a-marryin' an' takin' home a woman notfit for my Katy to be with. I says when I heard of it, says I: `Katy, I'lltake ye out o' that hole. I'll do the trick, an' I'll git the reward, an'it's married we'll be inside of a month, an' we'll go West.' That's whatbrought me up here into the mountains--me that was born, as ye might say,on the stair-steps of a tenement-house, an' fetched up the same."
Absorbed in the interest of his own affairs, the Irishman did not noticewhat revelations he had made. Whether or not this knowledge was new to hishost the uncertain light of the dying fire upon that grave, impassive facedid not disclose.
"An' now," Kerry went on, "I've been thinkin' about Katy a heap in the lastfew days. I'm goin' home to her to-morry--home to Philadelphy--goin' withempty hands. An' I'm a-goin' to say to her, 'Katy, would ye rather take mejest as I am, out of a job'--fer that's what I'll be when I goback,--'would ye rather take me so an' wait fer the little farm?' I guessshe'll do it; I guess she'll take me. I've got that love fer her that makesme think she'll take me. Did ye ever love a woman like that?"--turningsuddenly to the silent figure on the other side of the fire. "Did ye everlove one so that ye felt like ye could jest trust her, same as you couldtrust yourself? It's a--it--well, it's a mighty comfortable thing."
The mountaineer stretched out his injured hand, and examined it for so longa time without speaking that it seemed as though he would not answer atall. The wound was healing admirably now; he had made shift to shoot, withKerry's shoulder for a rest, and their larder was stocked with game oncemore. When he at last raised his head and looked across the fire, his blackeyes were such wells of misery as made the other catch his breath.
Upon the silence fell his big, serious voice, as solemn and sonorous as achurch-bell: "You ast me did I ever love an' trust a woman like that. Idid--an' she failed me. I ain't gwine to call you fool fer sich; you're atown feller, Dan, with smart town ways; mebby your gal would stick to you,even ef you was in trouble; but me--"
Kerry made an inarticulate murmur of sympathy.
The voice went on. "You say you're goin' home to her with jest your twobare hands?" it inquired. "But why fer? You've found your man. What makesyou go back that-a-way?"
Kerry's mouth was open, his jaw fallen; he stared through the smoke at hishost as though he saw him now for the first time. Kerry belongs to a peoplewho love or hate obviously and openly; that the outlaw should have knownhim from the first for a police officer, a creature of prey upon his track,and should have treated him as a friend, as a brother, appalled andrepelled him.
"See here, Dan," the big man went on, leaning forward; "I knowed what yourarrant was the fust minute I clapped eyes on you. You didn't know whether Icould shoot with my left hand as well as my right--I didn't choose youshould know. I watched fer ye to be tryin' to put handcuffs on me anyminute--after you found my right hand was he'pless."
"Lord A'mighty! You could lay me on my back with your left hand, Andy,"Kerry breathed.
The big man nodded. "They was plenty of times when I was asleep--or youthort I was. Why didn't ye do it? Where is they? Fetch 'em out."
Unwilling, red with shame, penetrated with a grief and ache he scarcecomprehended, Kerry dragged the handcuffs from their hiding-place. Theother took them, and thereafter swung them thoughtfully in his strong brownfingers as he talked.
"You was goin' away without makin' use o' these?" he asked, gently.
Kerry, crimson of face and moist of eye, gulped, frowned, and nodded.
"Well, now," the mountain-man pursued, "I been thinkin' this thing oversence you was a-speakin'. That there gal o' yourn she's in a tight box.You're the whitest man I ever run up ag'inst. You've done me better than myown brothers. My own brothers," he repeated, a look of pain and bitternessknitting those wonderfully pencilled brows above the big eyes. "Fer mypart, I'm sick o' livin' this-a-way. When you're gone, an' I'm here agin bymy lonesome, I'm as apt as not to put the muzzle o' my gun in my mouth an'blow the top o' my head off--that's how I feel most o' the time. I tell youwhat you do, Dan: you jest put these here on me an' take me down toGaryville--er plumb on to Asheville--an' draw your money. That'll square upthings fer you an' that pore little gal. What say ye?"
Into Kerry's sanguine face there surged a yet deeper red; his shouldersheaved; the tears sprang to his eyes; and before his host could guess theroot of his emotion the Irishman was sobbing, furiously, noisily, turnedaway, his head upon his arm. The humiliation of it ate into his soul; andthe tooth was sharpened by his own misdeeds. How many times had he lookedat the great, kindly creature across the fire there and calculated thechances of getting him to Garyville?
Andy's face twisted as though he had bitten a green persimmon. "Aw! Don't_cry!_" he remonstrated, with the mountaineer's quick contempt forexpressed emotion. "My Lord! Dan, don't--"
"I'll cry if I damn please!" Kerry snorted. "You old fool! Me a-draggin'you down to Garyville! Me, that's loved you like a brother! An' never hadno thought--an' never had no thought--Oh, hell!" he broke off, at thebitter irony of the lie; then the sobs broke forth afresh. To deny that hehad come to arrest the outlaw was so pitifully futile.
"So ye won't git the money that-a-way?" Andy's big voice ruminated, and astrange note of relief sounded in it; a curious gleam leaped into thesombre eyes. But he added, softly: "Sleep on it, bud; I'll let ye changeyour mind in the mornin'."
"You shut your head!" screeched Kerry, fiercely, with a hiccough ofwrenching misery. "You talk to me any more like that, an' I'll lambasteye--er try to--big as ye are! Oh, damnation!"
The last night in the cave was one of gusty, moving breezes and brilliantmoonlight, yet both its tenants slept profoundly, after their strangeoutburst of emotion. The first gray of dawn found them stirring, and Kerrymaking ready for his return journey. Together, as heretofore, they preparedtheir meal, then sat down in silence to eat it. Suddenly the mountain-manraised his eyes, to whose grave beauty the Irishman's temperament respondedlike that of a woman, and said, quietly,
"I'm a-goin' to tell ye somethin', an' then I'm a-goin' to show yesomethin'."
Kerry's throat ached. In these two weeks he had conceived a love for hisbig, silent, gentle companion which rivalled even his devotion to Katy. Thethought of leaving him helpless and alone, a common prey of reward-hunters,the remembrance of what Andy had said concerning his own despair beneaththe terrible pressure of the mountain solitude, were almost more than Kerrycould bear.
"Fust and foremost, Dan," the other began, when the meal was finished, "I'mgoin' to tell ye how come I done what I done. Likely you've hearn tales,an' likely they was mostly lies. You see, it was this-a-way: Me an' my wifeowned land j'inin'. The Turkey Track Minin' Company they found coal on it,an' was wishful to buy. Her an' me wasn't wed then, but we was about to be,an' we j'ined in fer to sell the land an' go West." His brooding eyes wereon the fire; his voice--which had halted before the words "my wife," thentaken them with a quick gulp--broke a little every time he said "she" or"her." Kerry's heart jumped when he heard the mention of that littleWestern farm--why, it might have been in the very locality he and Katylooked longingly toward.
"That feller they sent down here fer to buy the ground--Dickert was hisname; you've hearn it, I reckon?"
Kerry recognized the murdered man's name. He nodded, without a word, hislittle blue eyes helplessly fastened on Andy's eyes.
"Yes, Dickert 'twas. He was took with Euola from the time he put eyes onher--which ain't sayin' more of him than of any man 'at see her. But a townfeller's hangin' round a mounting-gal hain't no credit to her. Euola shewas promised to me. But ef she hadn't 'a' been, she wouldn't 'a' took nopassin' o' bows an' complyments from that Dickert. I thort the nighest wayout on't was to tell the gentleman that her an' me was to be wed, an' thatwe'd make the deeds as man an' wife, an' I done so."
Kerry looked at his host and wondered that any man should hope to tamperwith the affections of her who loved him.
"Wed we was," the mountain-man went on; and an imperceptible pause followedthe words. "We rid down to Garyville to be wed, an' we went from thejestice's office to the office of this here Dickert. He had a cuss with himthat was no better'n him; an' when it come to the time in the signin' thatour names was put down, an' my wife was to be 'examined privately andapart'--ez is right an' lawful--ez to whether I'd made her sign or not,this other cuss steps with her into the hall, an' Dickert turns an' says tome, 'You git a thousand dollars each fer your land--you an' that woman,' hesays.
"I never liked the way he spoke--besides what he said; an' I says to him,'The bargain was made fer five thousand dollars apiece,' says I, 'an' whydo we git less?'
"'Beca'se,' says he, a-swellin' up an' lookin' at me red an'devilish,--'beca'se you take my leavin's--you fool! I bought the land ofyou fer a thousand dollars each--an' there's my deed to it, that you jestsigned--I reckon you can read it. Ef I sell the land to the company--it'snone o' your business what I git fer it.'
"Well, I can't read--not greatly. I don't know how I knowed--but I didknow--that he was gittin' from the company the five thousand dollars apiecethat we was to have had. I seen his eye cut round to the hall door, an' Ithort he had that money on him (beca'se he was their agent an' they'dtrusted him so far) fer to pay me and Euola in cash. With that he grabbedup the deed an' stuffed it into his pocket. Lord! Lord! I could 'a' shookit out o' him--an' the money too--hit's what I would 'a' done if the foolhad 'a' kep' his mouth shut. But I reckon hit was God's punishment on him'at he had to go on sayin', 'Yes, you tuck my leavin's in the money, an'you've tuck my leavin's agin to-day.' Euola was jest comin' into the roomwhen he said that, an' he looked at her. I hit him." He gazed down thelength of his arm thoughtfully. "I ort to be careful when I hit out, bein'stronger than most. But I was mad, an' I hit harder than I thort. I reachedover an' grabbed open the table drawer jest fer luck--an' thar was themoney. I tuck it. The other cuss he was down on the floor, sorterwhimperin' an' workin' over this feller Dickert; an' he begun to yell thatI'd killed 'im. With that Euola she gives me one look--white ez paper shewas--an' she says, 'Run, Andy honey. I'll git to ye when I kin.'" Themountain-man was silent so long that Kerry thought he was done. But hesuddenly said:
"She ketched my sleeve, jest ez I made to start, an' said: 'I'll come,Andy. Mind, Andy, _I'll come to ye, ef I live_.'" Then there was thesilence of sympathy between the two men.
So that was the history of the crime--a very different history from theone Kerry had heard.
"Hit's right tetchy business--er has been--a-tryin' to take AndyProudfoot," the outlaw continued; "but, Dan, I'd got mighty tired, time youcome. An' Euola--"
Kerry rose abruptly, the memory hot within him of Proudfoot's offer of thenight before. The mountaineer got slowly to his feet.
"They's somethin' I wanted to show ye, too, ye remember," he said. Theywalked together down the bluff, to where another little cavern, low andshallow, hid itself behind huckleberry-bushes. "I kep' the money here,"Proudfoot said, kneeling in the cramped entrance and delving among therocks. He drew out a roll of bills and fingered them thoughtfully.
"The reward, now, hit was fifteen hundred dollars--with what the State an'company both give, warn't it? Dan, I was mighty proud ye wouldn't haveit--I wanted to give it to ye this-a-way. I don't know as I've got anyrights on Euola's money. I reckon I mought ax you fer to take it to her, efso be you could find her. My half--you kin have it, an' welcome."
Fear was in Kerry's heart. "An' what'll you be doin'?" he inquired,huskily.
"Me?" asked Andy, listlessly. "Euola she's done gone plumb back on me," heexplained. "I hain't heard one word from her sence the trouble, an' I'vegot that far I hain't a-keerin' what becomes of me. I like you, Dan; I'druther you had the money--"
"Oh, my Gawd! Don't, Andy," choked the Irishman. "Let me think, man," asthe other's surprised gaze dwelt on him. Up to this time all Kerry'sfaculties had been engrossed in what was told him, or that which went onbefore his eyes. Now memory suddenly roused in him. The woman he had seenback at Asheville, the woman who called herself Mandy Greefe, but whom thepolice there suspected of being Andy Proudfoot's wife, whom they had twiceendeavored, unsuccessfully, to follow in long, secret excursions into themountains. What was the story? What had they said? That she was seekingProudfoot, or was in communication with him; that was it! They had warnedKerry that the woman was mild-looking (he had seen her patient, wistfulface the last thing as he left Asheville), but that she might do him amischief if she suspected he was on the trail of her husband. "My Lord! Oh,my Lord! W'y, old man,--w'y, Andy boy!" he cried, joyously, patting theshoulder of the big man, who still knelt with the roll of money in hishands,--"Andy, she's waitin' fer you--she's true as steel! She's ready togo with you. Yes, an' Dan Kerry's the boy to git ye out o' this under thevery noses o' that police an' detective gang at Asheville. 'Tis you an' methat'll go together, Andy."
Proudfoot still knelt. His nostrils flickered; his eyes glowed. "Have acare what you're a-sayin'," he began, in a low, shaking voice. "Euola!Euola! You've saw me pretty mild; but don't you be mistook by that, likethat feller Dickert was mistook. Don't you lie to me an' try to fool me'bout her. One o' them fellers I shot had me half-way to Garyville, tellin'me she was thar--sick--an' sont him fer me."
Kerry laughed aloud. "Me foolin' you!" he jeered. "'Tis a child I've beenin your hands, ye black, big, still, solemn rascal! Here's money a-plenty,an' you that knows these mountains--the fur side--an' me that knows theropes. You'll lend me a stake f'r the West. We'll go together--all four ofus. Oh Lord!" and again tears were on the sanguine cheeks.
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