In the "Stranger People's" country

by Charles Egbert Craddock

Perhaps it was because of the succumbing of their fears in the drowsy influences of the hour, waxing late, perhaps because of the confidence engendered by elation and success, but a new sentiment of security, of capability, was perceptible upon the mere mention of their exploit, and several were disposed to dilate upon the future expenditure of their share rather than to devise means to properly secrete it. Here was where they seemed, strangely enough, Yates thought, to misunderstand Cheever. He took little part in the discussion; he listened to each with a sneering negation, half masked beneath his lowered eyelids, and Yates readily divined that none probably would know the hiding-place of the plunder but himself and Millroy, his loyal henchman, and the only one of them all in whom he really reposed any confidence.

Derridge sat gazing at the embers; once he offered a characteristic observation. "I know 'twouldn't do ter keep it hyar till the s'arch be over," he said, ponderingly, accepting Cheever's suggestion, "an' 'twouldn't do fur all o' we-uns ter light out fur Texas an' sech tergether. The folks would be a-talkin' 'bout our vamosin' like Steve done, an' the sher'ff would be on our track with a requisition. An' it hev ter be hid; not in the woods, 'kase we-uns might lose the spot, or a big rain mought wash the dirt off'n it, or sech."

"I tell ye," interjected Beckett, with a swift look of inspiration. "You know old Squair Beamen's fambly buryin'-groun'. Old Mis' Beamen hev got a tombstone like a big box. Lift up the top, and put the truck in thar."

"I'd like ter put ye in thar," replied Cheever, who had stolidly eyed him during this prelection. "I wouldn't hev that truck that close ter a jestice o' the peace fur nuthin'."

"An' I hev hearn o' other truck bein' hid thar," objected Ben Tyson, indignantly. "Them men ez robbed the cross-roads store up on Scolacutta River—thar plunder war fund thar."

"Not fur a long time; 'twar powerful well hid," insisted Pete Beckett, as if stating an essential value. But the other two laughed, and the vexed question seemed hardly soon to be decided.

The waning moon in the skies had swung now so high that her white light lay upon the verge of the niche with a sharply drawn and jagged outline—the shadow of the roofing ledge. Momently this belt grew broader, and the glow of the coals more dully red. The two mountaineers who were deputed to watch while the others slept beguiled the tedium by a game with a greasy pack of cards, using as a table the seat of a saddle laid between them as they half reclined on the floor, and played less by the light of the fire than the clear lustre streaming in at the arched opening of the grotto. The prone figures of the others gave evidence in heavy breathing of their unconscious slumbers. All was silent without; the silver sheen made splendid the woods, although it was invested with some strange yearning melancholy, belonging only to the moon on its wane. The frogs had ceased their chanting; the katydid was dumb; the earth seemed to sigh no more; the insensate vegetation slept. Once across the white space at the verge, where fell on the floor the sharp rugged shadow of the roof, there was in the midst of the stillness a sudden movement; it came from the top of the precipice above. The two gamesters sat as if petrified, the cards in their hands, their burning eyes intent upon the shadow of the summit of the cliff. Nothing—a long moment of suspense. Nothing! And then it came again; the outline of a floating wing—a swift similitude of the night-hawk sweeping in its noiseless flight through the air to seek its unwarned prey. The two men did not so much as glance at one another as they resumed their game; of these thrilling moments, charged with suspense and danger, their lives counted many.

So still it was without that it seemed to Yates that he might lose in sleep the consciousness of those few momentous hours that had changed the whole current of his life. He went over them again and again in his scanty dreams with a verisimilitude of repetition that sufficed almost to prevent him from discerning his waking thoughts from his slumber. Now and again as he reviewed them he so realized to his imagination a different ordering of their sequence, which might have been so readily effected at the time had he but foreseen, that he experienced almost the relief of escape. Why had he not refused old Pettingill's request to ride seventeen miles for the doctor? But, indeed, had he not offered the service from the superabundance of his good-nature? "I hope the old man got his horse again, like Cheever say," he sighed; for in the interim his conscience had been loaded with every ounce that the good bay weighed. And then, again, without the fancy of what he might have done and what he wished, he would recall the circumstances as they had befallen him. Never had impressions been so burned into his consciousness as in those most significant moments of his life. He could even now recollect the glow of friendly feeling with which he said, "I don't b'lieve but what the yerb doctor kin bring Len Rhodes through; but ter pleasure Mr. Shattuck I'll ride fur the t'other doctor, Mr. Pettingill—I'll ride fur him." He could even feel again his foot in the stirrup, the quick, smooth gallop of the fresh horse beneath him. And then, the winding lengths of the sandy woodland roads, so sweet with the breath of the azaleas, all white and star-eyed in dark bosky places, so fresh with the dew, so idealized by the moon. And thinking no harm! Thinking of Adelaide, with regrets for the harsh words between them, with resolutions that they should be the last. Alack! they were likely to be the last indeed. And of Moses—proteanwise! For he could see Moses as a half-grown lad, tall and strong and straight; and then as a bearded man; sometimes as a justice of the peace; sometimes the elastic paternal ambition pre-empted for him a seat in the State Legislature; and then the image dwindled, best of all, to the small limits of the cradle where he slept, so pink and white and warm, the highest potentate in all the land! Thinking of these things Yates was as the miles sped; hearing once afar, afar, a horn wound in the stillness, and then only his horse's hoofs with the alternate beat of the gallop.

He had ridden hard, since it might be a case of life and death; but there was a bad stretch of road ahead, a long hill to climb, and the horse was blown. It was a saving of time, he thought, as he slackened the pace and went slowly, slowly up the rugged ascent. The grass was thick on the margin; he drew his horse to the side where the hoofs might fall on the smooth dank sward. He could scarcely hear his saddle creak. The animal paused at the summit to snatch a mouthful of cool wet sassafras leaves, munching with relish, despite the hindrance of the bit.

Suddenly a wild hoarse scream rang out, startling the night; a tumult of voices sounded; a pistol shot split the air, another; and, as he looked from the summit of the hill down the declivity, he saw a group of horsemen in fierce altercation in the middle of the road. Scant as the moment was, so bright was the moon that he recognized more than one face. And the moment was scant, for the central figure, his whole pose vigorously resistant, fired again, wide of the mark, the ball whizzing by the ear of Zack Pettingill's bay horse. The animal uttered a sharp neigh, almost articulate, wheeled abruptly, and, heedless of either whip or spur, breaking into an unmanageable run, fled frantically homeward. Behind there were swifter hoofs than his. It was hardly a moment before Cheever's splendid horse was alongside; his burly strength re-enforced Steve Yates's pull on the reins. Whether, in the confusion of the moment, Cheever and his gang had mistaken the neighing of Pettingill's horse and the sound of his hoofs for pursuit and incontinently fled, or whether they thus divined that they were discovered, Yates did not then definitely understand, nor was it clearer to him afterward. Certainly they dreaded the escape of the witness who beheld the deed, and knew its perpetrators by face and name, far more than that of the plundered wayfarer, who, upon the diversion effected in his favor, made good use of his horse's hoofs upon the road that he had so lately travelled. Beyond a pistol ball or two, one of which Yates thought undoubtedly took effect, they did not offer to pursue him. They rode alongside of their protesting and unarmed captive, and discovering shortly how efficacious was the suggestion that he would doubtless be accused of the deed, since so many knew of his errand at this unusual hour and on this unfrequented road, they caused him to be pondering heavily upon the dreary possibilities of circumstantial evidence before they had gone many miles. Not that he did not offer resistance and seek flight. "What's the use o' swallerin' this bullet whether or no, Steve?" Cheever had demanded, as he presented a pistol to his captive's mouth. "I don't want ye ter eat lead, an' how would that mend the matter fur you-uns?" And when Yates sought to urge his horse into a gallop, it was but a shamble in comparison with the smooth, swift gait of the splendid animal that Cheever bestrode. He could do naught at the time, not even by screams arouse a wayside habitation, for they had soon plunged into unfrequented forests, and were far away from the haunts of men.