Though tempted from duty’s path by many a springing cotton tail, Dixie kept close behind his master until the sound of an axe came thudding through the forest, at which he cocked his remnant for ears, stood for a second on the qui vive, then shot away in the direction of the sound.
He returned panting and, planting himself in front of the little sleepwalker, tried to head him in a different direction, but the child only swerved and continued his upward course. Again the dog headed him off, again and again until he had turned him quite out of the road way, but the boy threaded his way through undergrowth and over rocks and hummocks as easily as if he had been of spiritual rather than material substance.
Finally Dixie grabbed in his teeth the border of the little shirt and tugged so lustily that his master could not advance a single step farther, and as he tugged he whined in thorough frenzy; and if his language could have been rendered into the vernacular it would have been:
“There’s danger ahead, Grover Cleveland! There’s a bad old man up there, a man that never sees me without making a lick at me with his stick, and if he does you mean and there’s only I left to tell the tale, who’ll I tell it to, I’d like to know? for there’s not a human that’s smart enough to understand my language, though I’ve understood English ever since I was a pup. Come back, Grover Cleveland! come back, I say, come back!” and with that last “come back,” Dixie gave such a sudden and powerful jerk that Grover Cleveland came tumbling backward into a bed of galax.
He righted himself and sat there with a hand on either side pressing the leaves down into the turf, the dog crouched close with his paws across the little bare knees and his tongue spasmodically licking the bewildered face.
The child heaved a slow, sobbing sigh or two and became his conscious self, a little boy alone at night in the dark, silent woods, frightened, not by darkness or silence or apprehension of danger, but by the thought of that mysterious power that could convey him so far from home and gran’daddy, and Aunt Carliny without any of their knowledge or consent. So he laid his head upon Dixie’s neck and cried it out and then got upon his feet, once more a practical little mountaineer with a mind curious to see and to understand, a loving heart and willing, eager little hands and feet to wait upon its promptings.
He knew that downward must be homeward and cautiously (less confident now than when guided by that unconscious mentality) he began to grope for his footing. Then again the sound of that axe came cleaving the silence and this time Grover Cleveland heard it as plainly as Dixie did.
He turned to investigate the phenomenon, Dixie following contentedly now that his master was himself again. The undergrowth had become thinner as they had ascended and soon they came out where great trees rose in stately exclusiveness unintruded upon by lesser growths. Here the darkness was less dense, stars looked down through rifts in the leafy canopy, and a little farther up the hill one fixed star gleamed scarcely eight feet from the ground as if intercepted upon an earthward trip and impaled upon a bough. It dispensed only a dim circle of light, but in it the boy could discern the figure of the wood chopper, could even catch an occasional glint reflected from the blade of the swinging axe. He had come up against a fallen tree and he climbed up and sat upon the trunk, hugging his knees while he peered into the gloom.
All at once a suspicion of his whereabouts entered his head and to confirm it he got off the log and made his way to its larger end. Yes, there stood the stump from which it had been cut but recently and green chips littered the ground. He explored farther. Nearby lay another log, just over there another—why they were all about him! He knew perfectly well where he was. On old man Sumter’s hill and these were his grandfather’s walnut trees!
But that man! Why was he here in the dark, dark night chopping away with might and main? The boy made his way toward him, Dixie quiet but alert and as full of curiosity as his master.