In the Tennessee mountains

by Charles Egbert Craddock

This fear dominated all others. He strode hastily forward. "Come out o' thar, 'Lijah!" he cried roughly.

There were moving shadows in the great barn-like door,—three—four—The moon was behind the forge, and he could not count them. They were advancing shadows. A hand was laid upon his arm. A drawling voice broke languidly on the night. "I'm up an' down sorry ter hev ter arrest you-uns, 'Vander, bein' ez we air neighbors an' mos'ly toler'ble friendly; but law is law, an' ye air my prisoner," and the constable of the district paused in the exercise of his functions to gnaw off a chew of tobacco with teeth which seemed to have grown blunt in years of that practice; then he leisurely resumed: "I war jes' sayin' ter the sheriff an' dep'ty hyar,"—indicating the figures in the door-way,—"ez we-uns hed better lay low till we seen how many o' you-uns war out hyar; else I wouldn't hev kep' ye waitin' so long."

The young mountaineer's amazement at last expressed itself in words. "Ye hev surely los' yer senses, Jubal Tynes! What air ye arrestin' of me fur?"

"Fur receivin' of stolen goods,—the shed back yander air full of 'em. I dunno whether ye holped ter rob the cross-roads store or no; but yander's the goods in the shed o' the shop, an' Pete's been away two weeks, an' better; so 'twar obleeged ter be you-uns ez received 'em."

Evander, in a tumult of haste, told his story. The constable laughed lazily, with his quid between his teeth. "Mebbe so,—mebbe so; but that's fur the jedge an' jury ter study over. Them men never tuk thar kyart no furder. 'Twar never stuck in no quicksand in Lost Creek. They knowed the sheriff war on thar track, an' they stove up thar kyart, an' sent the spokes an' shafts an' sech a-driftin' down Lost Creek, thinkin' 'twould be swallered inter the mounting an' never be seen agin. But jes' whar Lost Creek sinks under the mounting the drift war cotched. We fund it thar, an' knowed ez all we hed ter do war ter trace 'em up Lost Creek. An' hyar we be! The goods hev been identified this very hour by the man ez owns 'em. I hope ye never holped ter burglarize the store, too; but 'tain't fur me ter say. Ye hev ter kem along o' we-uns, whether ye like it or no," and he laid a heavy hand on his prisoner's shoulder.

The next moment he was reeling from a powerful blow planted between the eyes. It even felled the stalwart constable, for it was so suddenly dealt. But Jubal Tynes was on his feet in an instant, rushing forward with a bull-like bellow. Once more he measured his length upon the ground,—close to the anvil this time, for the position of all the group had changed in the fracas. He did not rise again; the second blow was struck with the ponderous sledge. As the men hastened to lift him, they were much hindered by the ecstatic capers of the idiot brother, who seemed to have been concealed in the shop. The prisoner made no attempt at flight, although, in the confusion, he was forgotten for the time by the officers, and had some chance of escape. He appeared frightened and very meek; and when he saw that there was blood upon the sledge, and they said brains, too, he declared that he was sorry he had done it.

"I done it!" cried the idiot joyfully. "Jube sha'n't fight 'Vander! I done it!" and he was so boisterously grotesque and wild that the men lost their wits while he was about; so they turned him roughly out of the forge, and closed the doors upon him. At last he went away, although for a time he beat loudly upon the shutter, and called piteously for Evander.

It was a great opportunity for old Dr. Patton, who lived six miles down the valley, and zealously he improved it. He often felt that in this healthful country, where he was born, and where bucolic taste and local attachment still kept him, he was rather a medical theorist than a medical practitioner, so few and slight were the demands upon the resources of his science. He was as one who has long pondered the unsuggestive details of the map of a region, and who suddenly sees before him its glowing, vivid landscape.

"A beautiful fracture!" he protested with rapture,—"a beautiful fracture!"

Through all the country-side were circulated his cheerful accounts of patients who had survived fracture of the skull. Among the simple mountaineers his learned talk of the trephine gave rise to the startling report that he intended to put a linchpin into Jubal Tynes's head. It was rumored, too, that the unfortunate man's brains had "in an' about leaked haffen out;" and many freely prompted Providence by the suggestion that "ef Jube war ready ter die it war high time he war taken," as, having been known as a hasty and choleric man, it was predicted that he would "make a most survigrus idjit."