When 'Bear Cat' Went Dry Part 36

Carrying with him bridle-reins and stirrup-straps, he disappeared again into the defile. Creeping for the second time with the best of his Indian-like stealth to the edge of the fire-lighted clearing, he saw Jake Kinnard standing, with his eyes on the embers, ten feet away from the rifle that was propped against a tree.

With a leap that sounded cras.h.i.+ngly in the dead bushes Turner catapulted himself into the lighted area, and as the moons.h.i.+ner wheeled, his hand going instinctively out toward his weapon, he found himself covered from a distance of two yards.

"Hands overhead!--an' no noise," came the sharp warning, and had he been inclined to disobey the words there was an avid glitter in the eyes of the sudden visitor discouraging to argument.

"Lay down betwixt them two saplin's thar," was the next order, and foaming with futile rage, Jake glanced about wildly--and discreetly did as he was told.

Ten minutes later Turner rose from his knees, leaving behind him a man gagged and staked out, Indian fas.h.i.+on, with feet harnessed to one tree-trunk and hands to another.

Lying mute and harrowed with chagrin, he saw his copper coil battered into shapelessness and his mash vat emptied upon the ground. Then he saw Bear Cat Stacy disappear into the shadows, trophy-laden.

Dawn was near once more before Turner reached the Quarterhouse, and from the hitching-rack the last mount had been ridden away. Before him, still m.u.f.fled against outcry, plodded Black Carmichael, seething with a fury which would ride him like a mania until he had avenged his indignities--but for the moment he was inoffensive.

At the place where the gray horse had been tethered, Turner lashed the rider. Above his head to an over-arching sycamore branch, he swung a maltreated coil of copper tubing. Then he turned, somewhat wearied and aching of muscle, into the timber again.

"I reckon now," he said to himself, "I kin go over thar an' lay down."

CHAPTER XXI

Three times along the way, as the new crusader trudged on to Dog Tate's cabin, the late-setting moon glinted on queerly twisted things suspended from road-side trees--things unlike the fruit of either hickory or poplar.

A grim satisfaction enlivened his tired eyes, but it lingered only for a moment. Before them rose the picture of a girl sitting stricken by a bedside, and his brows contracted painfully with the memory.

From the window of Tate's cabin came a faint gleam of light, and, as he drew cautiously near, a figure rose wearily from the dark doorstep.

"I've been settin' up fer ye," announced Dog. "I mistrusted ye'd done met with mishap."

Inside the cabin crowded with sleeping and snoring figures, the host pointed to a loft under the s.h.i.+ngles. "Ye'll hev ter bed in up thar,"

he said. "Don't come down ter-morrer twell I gives ye ther word. Right likely thar'll be folks abroad sarchin' fer ye. Me an' Joe aims ter blackguard ye no end fer bustin' up our still."

"Thet's what I 'lowed ter caution ye ter do," acquiesced Turner. "All I'm askin' now air a few hours of slumber."

He climbed the ladder with heavy limbs, and, falling on the floor among its litter of household effects, was instantly asleep.

It was the habit of Kinnard Towers to rise early, even for a people of early risers, and on this morning he followed his customary routine.

Last night he had slept restlessly because the events of the day had been stressful and uncertain, even if, in their summary, there had been an element of satisfaction.

So Kinnard pulled on his trousers and boots, still thinking of yesterday, and crossed the hall to the room where Black Tom Carmichael slept.

Black Tom's bed had not been disturbed, and his door swung open. Towers roused two other members of his household and the three went out into the first mists of dawn to investigate. At the hitching-rack they halted in dismay and their jaws sagged.

The light was yet dim and ghostly, and at first the body that hung unconscious with hours of chilling and cramp had every appearance of lifelessness. A bitter anger broke out in Kinnard's face and for a time none of them spoke. Then from the chief's lips escaped an oath so fierce and profane that his men paused in their attempt at resuscitating the corpse-like figure, and following his eyes they saw the fresh insult which he had just discovered--a still-worm demolished and hanging high.

"h.e.l.l's clinkers!" stormed the leader. "What manner of deviltry air this?"

Restored, an hour later, by hot coffee and whiskey, Black Tom told his story, colorfully embellished with profane metaphor, and a squad went riding "h.e.l.l-fer-leather" to the still of "Little" Jake Kinnard.

When the sun was fully revealed they were back again, with another man, feeble and half-frozen of body, but molten-hot of spirit to vouchsafe indignant evidence.

The cup of Towers' fury was br.i.m.m.i.n.g over, but before its first bitterness had been quaffed yet other heralds of tribulation arrived to pour in fresh wormwood. "Thar's still-house quiles hangin' all up an'

down ther high-road," they lamented.

Kinnard looked at his henchman out of eyes somberly furious and his florid face turned a choleric purple.

"Thar hain't but one way ter treat sech a d.a.m.n' pest es thet," he said slowly with the implacable manner of one pa.s.sing final sentence. "He's got ter be kilt--an' kilt quick." But a sudden reflection obtruded itself, snarling the simple edict with complication. "Hold on!" he added with a less a.s.sured finality. "Hev any stills been tampered with among his own folks--or air hit jest over hyar?"

"We hain't heered much from ther yon side yit," admitted the news-bearers. "Thar's one thet Dog Tate used ter run, though, thet's hangin' high as Haaman. Dog's a kinsman of his'n but he dwells nigh ter hyar."

"Hev some fellers ride over thar an' talk with him," commanded Towers with prompt efficiency. "Ef I war sure they wouldn't all stand behind him, I'd take a crowd of men over thar an' hang him in front of his own house. Yestiddy they didn't seem ter hev much use fer him."

Of one thing, however, he failed to take adequate cognizance. That turning away of the clan, yesterday, in cool or angry repudiation had been less unanimous than it seemed. There were elders among them who had for years deplored the locked-in life of their kind and to whom this boy's effrontery secretly appealed. None of their own heritage and breed had ever before dared to raise his voice against forcible scourging out of a tolerated practice--but that did not mean that all men sanctioned it in their hearts.

So as the Stacys had scattered they had discussed the matter, guardedly save where the speaker was sure of his auditor, and Kinnard would have been astonished to know how many of them said, "I reckon mebby ther boy is fittified--but ef he could do what he seeks ter, hit would sartain sure be a G.o.d's blessin' ter these hills."

"I don't see no diff'rence atween what he aims at, an' what them d.a.m.n'

revenuers seeks ter do," suggested a young man who had fallen in with Joe Stacy after the gathering and rode knee to knee with him. "Myself I don't foller nuther makin' hit ner drinkin' hit. Hit kilt my daddy an'

my maw raised me up ter hate ther stuff--but I'm jest tellin' how hit looks ter me."

"Sim," said Joe Stacy gravely, "I counseled Turner ter put aside this notion--because I mis...o...b..ed hit would mean his death, but ef ye don't see no difference atween him an' a revenuer ye're jest a plain idjit--an' I don't mean no offense neither. Ther revenuer works fer blood money. Bear Cat hain't seekin' no gain but ter bring profit ter his people. Ther revenuer slips up with knowledge thet he gains by busted faith an' spies. Bear Cat's done spoke out open an' deeclared hisself."

The young man reined in his horse abruptly.

"I'm obleeged ter ye fer enlightenen' me," he said with blunt directness. "I'll ask ye ter hold yore counsel about this matter. I aims ter go back thar an' work with him."

A slow smile spread over the ragged lips of Bear Cat's uncle. He made no criticism, but one might have gathered that he was not displeased.

Back at Lone Stacy's house on the morning that Kinnard Towers was awakening to conditions, were gathered a handful of men. They lounged s.h.i.+ftlessly as though responding to no object save casual curiosity.

They were cautious to express neither approbation nor disapproval, but intangibly the threads of sympathy and hostility were unraveling. Those who were the steadier of gaze, clearer of pupil and fitter of brawn, inclined toward Bear Cat and his crusade, and, conversely, those who wore the stamp of reddened eye and puffed socket gave back sneering scowls to the mention of his name.

But all alike crowded around, when a traveler, who had elected to cross the mountain from Marlin Town by night, paused, puffed with the importance of one bearing news.

"Hev ye folks done heered ther tidin's?" he demanded, s.h.i.+fting to a sidewise position in his saddle. "Bear Cat Stacy's been raidin' stills.

Thar's a copper worm hangin' right at ther Quarterhouse door--an' trees air bloomin' with others all along ther high road."

The murmur was half a growl--for the group was not without its blockader or two--and half pure tribute to prompt achievement.

"Nor thet hain't all by half," went on the traveler, relating with the gusto of a true climax how Black Tom had been bound to a hitching-rack and Jake Kinnard staked out by his demolished mash kettle. This was pure exploit--and whatever its motive the mountain man loves exploit.

Moreover, these sufferers from Bear Cat's wrath were men close to the hated Kinnard Towers. Faces that had brooded yesterday grinned to-day.