The Code of the Mountains Part 20

"Yes, there is to be a parade in town. Have your men tuck their s.h.i.+rt-tails in." The major smiled at his little pleasantry. The mountaineers had long since abandoned their more exaggerated idiosyncracies.

"It is concerning Private Newton Spooner, sir, that I want to speak."

"What about him?"

The Deacon told his story. He was shrewd enough to tell it with seeming frankness, even to the point of admitting that on that other day, now a year ago, he had bound Newt over for twelve months of truce. That period ended to-morrow. He spoke of the calendar in the private's tent, and Falkins' face darkened thoughtfully.

"Don't you imagine he has forgotten that grudge?" questioned the officer. On the table before him lay an unfinished letter to a girl in Winchester. He had boasted in a paragraph of which the ink was still damp that his militia experiment had succeeded.

"He has not forgotten it, sir. He has not changed it." The Deacon shook his head with conviction as he spoke. "You're a mountain man yourself, sir. Did you ever know a mountain hatred to die while the man himself lived to harbor it? Did you ever make a pet of a rattle-snake?"

The major was sitting at his camp table, littered with papers and paraphernalia. A swinging lantern cast its yellow flare on the canvas flies and his side arms, lying with his discarded blouse on his cot.

Just inside the opening stood the sergeant, seeming rather gigantic against the black background of the night sky through the triangle of the raised tent flap.

"I don't like to admit that." Falkins picked up the pen, and toyed with it absently. "I'm rather eager to see this boy make good. You are a mountain man, too. Your record for feud-hatred and homicide was once a rather full one, yet you came back to the hills, declaring for peace.

Isn't the change in yourself permanent, sergeant?"

Falkins had made the personal application as an ill.u.s.tration and he made it smilingly; but the Deacon's face wore for a moment an expression of deep pain.

"I hope, sir," he replied respectfully, "that my record speaks for itself. But I had been living in the outside world. He has known only the mountains--and prison."

"And now he knows the army!" The officer spoke eagerly. "The service is stronger than the individual. It will grip him. If we can arouse his ambition--"

"It won't help to make mistakes, sir. To-morrow Private Newton Spooner becomes a menace to your life. Until midnight to-night you are safe."

For a while there was silence, then Major Falkins took up his pen again.

"Sergeant," he said, "to-morrow morning after inspection send Private Spooner to my tent."

"Yes, sir." The Deacon saluted, turned with the precision of an automaton and left the place.

Immediately after inspection on the next morning, a private appeared at the fly on Major Falkins' tent. The private was of course unarmed. His top-sergeant had seen to that, even though the soldier had surrept.i.tiously sought to slip a revolver inside his army s.h.i.+rt.

As Newt Spooner presented himself, Henry Falkins was sitting on the edge of his cot. He was already in dress-uniform for the parade, and wore side arms. He glanced up, and nothing in the demeanor of the private escaped him.

For Newt stood at the tent-opening, as white as a ghost, and, despite his lately learned military bearing, there was the hint of a tremor through his entire body. It was evident that last night had brought little sleep to the eyes of this man. His hands were tight-clenched at his trouser seams, and deep back in his eyes burned a fire that was hardly sane. Yet Major Falkins was in part right. The sinew of the service is stronger than its atoms, and, as Private Spooner of B Company waited with clenched teeth, his hand rose automatically, though rigidly, in the prescribed salute.

"The first sergeant ordered me to report to ye," he announced in a queerly strained voice. At the "sir" he balked, but the officer was not inclined to quarrel over such details. He knew that however insane and morbid was the fixed idea in the soldier's mind, it was to himself a thing of ghastly reality.

"Spooner," said the officer quietly, "for the next ten minutes I waive all matter of rank. I sent for you to talk to you, not as Private Spooner of B Company, but as Newt Spooner of Troublesome Creek. To-day is the Fourth of July."

The boy took a step forward and his lips showed the teeth under them.

"I reckon I hain't a-forgettin' thet," he snarled in a half-whisper. "I reckon thar hain't been a day I hain't a-counted."

Falkins nodded with disconcerting calmness.

"Now, Newt," he said shortly, "I am told you have taken a blood-oath against me. Is that true?"

"Ef thar's a G.o.d in heaven he knows. .h.i.t's true, an' I warns ye"--the boy's cheeks flamed with a wild rush of blood to the temples--"I warns ye that I'm a-goin' ter keep hit. I've done been stopped three times.

Next time all h.e.l.l hain't a-goin' ter stop me."

"What's the idea? What's the reason?"

"I reckon ye knows thet well enough."

"I know that I testified to facts--true facts, not perjury. I should have had to do the same thing if it had been my own brother who was on trial."

"Like h.e.l.l ye would!" In the boy's exclamation was supreme scorn and repudiation of a lying excuse.

"I'm not going to argue with you and I'm not going to have traitors in my command. If you remain in my battalion from this point on, it's because I permit you to do it. I can have you transferred or bob-tailed. I don't want to do either. You have made a good soldier. I don't want to ruin you for a personal reason."

"Do ye reckon," the private's voice broke out like an explosion, "thet ye kin buy me off with fair talk thet-a-way? Ye couldn't do hit ef ye made me a major-general."

Falkins smiled grimly.

"Why should I buy you off?" he inquired. "Do you imagine I am afraid of you?"

He rose abruptly from the cot, and, as his enemy stood twitching frenziedly in every feature and muscle, unbuckled his belt and tossed it with its saber and revolver to the table half-way between them.

"There," curtly announced the commissioned officer, "you are as close to that gun as I am. Why don't you pick it up?"

With a snarl like an unleashed wild-cat and a swift noiseless movement, Private Newt Spooner leaped forward. His eyes were still burning into the face of his superior and his right hand crept out slowly until its fingers had caressingly touched and closed around the grip of the service pistol.

Then, in a forward-leaning and strained att.i.tude, he paused and stood statuesquely holding the pose.

Falkins had put his arms at his back and stepped forward until the two were directly across the table, then the officer suggested quietly,

"You'd better hurry. We'll be interrupted."

For a moment, neither moved nor spoke. The private's breath came and went in gasps.

Slowly Newt Spooner shook his head and withdrew his hand from his weapon. The joy had gone out of his enterprise. His victim had not suffered any terror or sense of defeat. It was not as he had pictured it. Whether he shot or did not shoot, Major Henry Falkins would be the victor of that encounter. He straightened up again, and spoke slowly and in bitterness:

"You penitentiaried me--an' ye thought ye had me thar fer life. Now, when ye've got things fixed jest ter suit ye, ye makes a big play when ye knows I hain't a-goin' ter take ye up. I hates ye wuss then pizen--an' I'm a-goin' ter kill ye, but I'm a-goin' ter pick my own time an' place. d.a.m.n ye ter h.e.l.l! I hain't give up my notion. I'm goin' ter git ye--but not now."

"All right." Falkins again buckled on his belt. "When this war is over, we can settle our affairs. As long as you are in my command, your military duties come first. Is that agreed?"

"I hain't makin' no promises. I may git ye in a year. I may git ye in a month. I'd ruther hev ye jest study erbout thet."

"Spooner, you are a fool." The officer spoke rather contemptuously. "You have sworn to two oaths. One is personal; the other is national. You swore, when you were mustered in, to fight the battles of your country.

Now you are either going to keep that oath, or leave the service. Which is it to be?"

"Hit 'pears like thar hain't a-goin' ter be no battles ter fight."

"All right. Give me your hand that until we are mustered out, or reach the front, I need not watch you."