"MOONSHINERS."
BY E. H. MILLER.
Chapter III.
CONNY REPAYS THE DOCTOR'S KINDNESS.
But before the mountains were quite bare there came a time when even Conny ceased to interest the family, for Joe was coming home from college. Joe, the handsome young student, whom father, mother, Betty, and the servants all agreed to worship. He was to bring with him a friend, and from garret to cellar the whole house was astir to do them honor.
Conny was in the kitchen, polishing the silver, and listening to Biddy's raptures. "Sure, thin, Conny, and it's a young gintleman ye'll be seein' as there isn't the likes in ahl this miserable coontry, bad luck till it!"
"Is he like the master?" asked Conny.
"Indade, thin, I couldn't be sayin' whidder it's likest the masther or the misthress he is. Tahl an' straight, an' sooch a look in the two eyes of 'im."
"Conny," said the doctor, coming to the door, "I am obliged to go to Hampton to see a very sick man. You will have to go for Master Joe and the other gentleman to-night."
"Yes, sir," said Conny, well pleased with the commission.
"Be sure you start in season. Put Doll into the sulky, and lead Prince behind. The young gentlemen can drive themselves back, unless Joe chooses to ride Prince. He was always such a boy for a horse!"
The doctor's rugged face softened, as it always did at the thought of his boy, and it was no small self-denial to go away to the bedside of some poor old wreck of humanity, delaying for hours the delight of greeting his prince.
Early in the afternoon Conny started on his long ride of ten miles to meet the young gentlemen at Kilbourne, the nearest railroad station. It was almost November, but the blue haze of the Indian summer hung over the landscape, and the air was warm and mellow with sunshine. Any eye but Conny's would have said that the long mountain gorges, and the thickly wooded glens into which they opened, were deserted of all life save the squirrels and a few wood birds, but Conny heard a hawk's note from above the cliff, and caught sight of a man silently watching him from behind a mossy log. He laughed a little to himself to think how often he had played the spy in that very hollow, watching to see who came or went from Kilbourne, and then with a word started Doll into a quicker pace. He was at Kilbourne in ample time to meet his passengers, and, as the doctor had anticipated, Joe decided that he would ride Prince, as he had so often done before, while Conny should take his friend Douglass in the sulky.
The brief sunshine was already vanishing when they started, and the warmth rapidly leaving the frosty air. Douglass wrapped himself closely in his cloak, and Master Joe was glad to start Prince into a brisk canter. Almost without warning the night shut down, and they found the deeper cuts among the mountains quite dark. Doll was a swift traveller, and old Prince could not keep up his pace, so Master Joe gradually fell back, and kept near the sulky, exchanging words with his friend, and plying Conny with questions about home.
"We shall soon be there now," he said, as they entered a narrow gorge. "We really ought to show you some sort of an adventure, Douglass, to give the proper spice to your first visit to the mountains. If it was summer, now, we could get something terrific in the shape of a storm, and slide a few rods of road down the mountain, or pile up the track with big trees and rocks."
"I should fancy it was just the kind of place for banditti," said his friend; "and I am sure some of those fellows we saw at the station look as if they would take naturally to that sort of life."
They were driving slowly, and at that moment a strange, shrill cry went wavering up from below them.
"That's a murderous voice for a bird," said Douglass.
"It's a hawk. I fancy," said Master Joe; "you often hear it among the mountains, though I've never been able to find the fellow.— What's wrong, Conny?" for Conny had stopped Doll so suddenly that Prince bumped his nose on the sulky.
Alas for Conny! He knew well enough what that cry meant. It was a warning sent up to some one at the rocky pass above, to say that danger was coming up the mountain. He remembered in an instant that old Timothy had said there were stories of government officers in disguise spying about Dunsmore, and that the moonshiners would make it uncomfortable for them if they crossed their tracks.
No dream of fear for himself came to his mind, but how should he save Master Joe? for he knew more than even old Timothy guessed of the lawless and desperate characters among the mountains.
"Master Joe," said he, quickly, "would you mind changing with me a bit? I'm lighter weight to carry, and I'll go on to let old Timothy know. He'd be vexed not to be ready with his lantern."
"CONNY WENT SPINNING AWAY IN THE DUSK."
Joe was quite ready for the exchange. It was many months since he had tried the saddle, and an hour of it was quite enough to satisfy him; so he settled back comfortably in the seat, while Conny went spinning away in the dusk, as if old Prince had suddenly renewed his youth. They heard the hoof-clicks on the hard road growing fainter in the distance, and then the sharp ring of a rifle that woke a thousand echoes among the hills.
Douglass started, but Joe laughed.
"Your banditti are putting in an appearance."
"Attacking an unfortunate rabbit, I suppose," said Douglass, bravely.
Neither of them guessed what had really happened. When Conny rode at full speed into Hemlock Glen he had hardly a plan as to what he should do, but the next instant a bullet struck him in the shoulder and almost sent him from his horse. He caught the lines in his left hand, and called in a clear but low voice to some invisible foe, "It's I, Conny McConnell, and the lads in the buggy beyond are just Master Joe, the doctor's son, coming home from college with a friend, just a laddie like himsel'."
There was not a sound in response unless a dry twig may have cracked, but Conny paced slowly along until Doll's quick feet brought her into the Glen.
"Hullo, Conny!" called Master Joe, "did you hear a rifle-shot?"
"Yes, sir," said Conny; "there's a deal of game running these nights."
"What sort of game do you folks hunt with rifles up here?" asked Douglass; but Conny did not answer, and in a few moments they came out upon the open road, and saw the lights of Dunsmore about a mile before them.
Old Timothy was on the look-out, and long before they reached the house they saw his lantern moving about the barn.
"Here we are!" called Joe, throwing down the lines and springing out; and in the happy confusion of the greetings no one looked at Conny, until the doctor, taking his hand from the side of Prince, started to see that it was stained with blood.
"What! Why, bless us! Conny, what has happened to you?"
"I think I have a little hurt somewhere in me shoulder, sir," said Conny, sliding from the horse; "it's nothing much, sir, if you'd have the goodness to fix me a little at the barn."
But the doctor would not hear to such a thing, and took Conny to the surgery, where he discovered that the bones of his arm were broken above the elbow; and most unwillingly Conny told the story.
How he had recognized the cry of warning, and understood that the young gentlemen were mistaken for revenue officers, and that mischief would probably be done them unless he could succeed in preventing the attack.
"And so you invited them to empty their rifles on you," said the doctor, gruffly; but as he spoke he wiped his eyes on a roll of bandages.
"It's good luck it was me, sir," said Conny. "Wouldn't it have spited us if Master Joe had been spoiled with a broken arm, and all the fun we've been planning gone for nothing?"
"But the rascals might have killed you."
"I don't think they're that bad, sir; they were meaning a bit of a scare, and maybe a drubbing or the likes."
"I'll drub them," said the doctor; "I'll make this county too hot for them," and then, having finished dressing the arm, he threw his own dressing-gown over Conny. "My boy," he said, gently, "I understand perfectly well what a brave thing you have done: you risked your own life to save our Joe. I honor you and love you for it from my heart, but you and I will keep it a secret between us for the present. I think it would kill my wife to know her boy had been in such danger. She shall not know it till that nest of murderers is cleared out."
Conny's part in Master Joe's vacation was not exactly what he had planned, but he scarcely regretted the wound that brought him such gentle and loving care from every member of the family, by whom it was only understood that Conny had been accidentally shot by a careless hunter, and had borne his pain in silence all the long ride home from the Glen.
Months afterward, when the last moonshiner had disappeared, and the old still in the forest had been dismantled, the doctor ventured to tell his wife of Joe's escape.
"And I have never thanked him," she said, her eyes filling with tears, as she went straight to the attic, where Conny was so deeply absorbed in a bit of carving that he did not see or hear her until she put her arms around him and kissed him again and again.
"I know all about it now, Conny—the brave, beautiful thing that you did for my boy."
"Oh, ma'am," said Conny, "it was nothing. I was so glad to do it."
Mrs. Hunter kissed him again, as she repeated, gently, "'Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.'"
And Conny, not understanding, said, earnestly, "Maybe you'll think me presuming to be saying it, but it's that same I'd do for ye, ma'am, or for little Miss Betty, or the master himself, if it's any good it would be bringing ye."
"I believe you Conny," said Mrs. Hunter, "but I hope you may never have a chance to try."