AN OUTLAW.
A STORY OF JIM-NED CREEK.
BY M. E. M. DAVIS.
The porch of Bishop's store—the heart, so to speak, of the Jim-Ned Creek settlement—was deserted, for the November day was bleak and raw. Half a score or more men lounged over the counters within, or sat silent and ruminant around the smouldering fire. Gideon Bishop, half hidden by his tall desk, was busy with his ledgers, but he glanced furtively and frowningly now and again at his guests.
The Outlaw came up the road at a leisurely pace. She was a small mare, blue-gray in color, with a flowing mane and tail of a fine glossy black, much matted with cockle-burs. She tossed her small head coquettishly in response to the neigh of welcome from the horses hitched to the saplings about the store, and picked her way daintily to the very edge of the porch, where she stood saucily expectant.
"Hullo! There's that blue mustang o' yourn!" exclaimed Sam Leggett, jumping down from the counter. "It's been nigh onto two year sence she vamoosed, ain't it, Uncle Gid? Where hez she been a-hidin' herse'f?"
Mr. Bishop picked up a wagon whip, took a lariat from its nail on the wall, and stepped out upon the porch.
"So! You've come back, have you, Lady?" he said, with a grim smile. He reached forward as he spoke and attempted to slip the rope over the mare's neck. She shook her mane gently, and dipping her pretty head, nipped his forearm with her strong white teeth.
At another time old Gid, stern and harsh as he was, might not have resented this playful salute, for the skin on his brown wrist was barely grazed, but he was in no mood for such fooling now. He started back with a quick step; his brow reddened angrily, and the fire leaped to his deep-set eyes. He lifted the whip; the long keen lash curled through the air, and descended with a stinging sound upon the runaway's shining flank. She reared violently, uttering a cry almost human in its indignant protest; then she wheeled about, and galloped away in the direction whence she had come.
The men who had trooped out upon the porch at Mr. Bishop's heels gazed after her until she disappeared in the creek bottom; then they slouched back to their seats.
"Jack broke that mustang hisse'f," Joe Trimble presently remarked. "I mind the first time he ever backed her. Jing! how she bucked!"
"Speakin' o' Jack," Newt Pinson ventured, in an off-hand way, but not daring to look at Jack's father—"speakin' o' Jack, 'pears to me it's nigh about time we was huntin' that boy up."
"Gentlemen," said Mr. Bishop, in a loud, angry voice, "you 'tend to your own business, if—you—please. Jack Bishop is nineteen year old, and full able to take keer of hisse'f."
These words penetrated through a half-open door into the family living-room back of the store. On hearing them, Jack's mother burst into a fresh fit of weeping, which the kindly neighbors hovering about her tried vainly to soothe.
"He's just as oneasy about Jack as I am," she sobbed. "That onliest child of ourn is the apple of his father's eye. But it's Gid's pride as won't let him give up that a Bishop can get lost. And everybody's plumb afraid of him. Oh, my boy, my boy!"
"Don't ye worrit yo'se'f into a spazzum, Susy Bishop," said Granny Carnes. "I ain't afeard o' Gid Bishop, ner no other male creeter. An' I've give my orders to the boys a-settin' yander in the sto'. Ef Jack Bishop"—here she raised her voice to its highest and shrillest pitch—"ef Jack Bishop ain't inside this house befo' candle-lightin' to-night, them boys has got to tromp out an' find him, an' fetch him home, or not dassen to show their faces agin the len'th an' bre'th o' Jim-Ned."
"Amen!" said Mrs. Leggett and Mrs. Trimble together.
"Double an' thripple Amen!" added Mrs. Pinson, solemnly.
There was indeed no small cause for anxiety. Early on a Tuesday morning young Bishop had started out afoot, with dog and gun, for a few hours' hunting in The Rough—a belt of savage woodland which stretched away westward, with wide solitary prairies on either side, to the chain of hills some fifteen miles distant. It was now Friday, past noon, and he had not returned. Newt Pinson had met him at the crossing of Jim-Ned Creek half an hour after he had left home; he had not been seen nor heard of since. He had gone on alone; for the dog, a half-grown puppy, had turned and trotted back, unnoticed, behind Mr. Pinson.
"Oh, if Josh was only with him!" moaned Mrs. Bishop, already alarmed, at the close of the first day.
And Josh, the intelligent old hound, rubbed his head against her knee and whined softly.
The lad—everywhere a favorite—had never absented himself from home before; and when Wednesday, Thursday, Friday came and went without tidings of him, the neighbors from up and down the creek began to gather at the store.
They looked at the heavy sky, sunless and misty these four days past, and shook their heads ominously, whispering among themselves. The poor mother was wellnigh frantic with alarm. Uncle Gid alone maintained an air of obstinate confidence, in the face of which no one dared venture a move.
"Jack Bishop is full able to take keer of hisse'f," he repeated, proudly, in answer to Mr. Pinson's timid suggestions. "Jack Bishop knows every inch of ground betwixt Jim-Ned and Rattlesnake Gap."
"All the same, notwithstandin'," whispered Granny Carnes in Mrs. Bishop's ear, "I've give my orders for candle-lightin', honey."
But before candle-lighting Mr. Bishop's assumed stoicism gave way. About sunset he arose and took his rifle from the rack above the door. "Come on, boys," he said, with a catch in his throat. And a moment later they were hurrying down the rutty road.
At the Jim-Ned crossing the old man paused. "You go back, Susy," he said, with rough kindness, to the frail little woman following a pace or two behind him. "Go back, and stay with the women folks. You ain't nowise fitten for this sort o' thing."
Jack's mother pulled the red knitted shawl closer about her head, and moved steadily forward. "No, Gid," she said, quietly; "I'm not going back—not without my boy."
He put an arm about her without another word, and husband and wife presently entered together the mysterious gloom of The Rough.