Then ensued a long silence. “Thar’s one thing to be sartain,” said Mark, suddenly. “I ain’t never a-goin ter that thar still no more.”
“I hev hearn ye say that afore,” remarked Mrs. Yates, dryly. “An’ thar never come a day when yer father war alive ez he didn’t say that very word—nor a day as that word warn’t bruken.”
These amenities were at length sunk in sleep, and the little log hut hung upon its precarious perch on the slope beneath the huge cliff all quiet and lonely. The great gorge seemed a channel hewn for the winds; they filled it with surging waves of sound, and the vast stretches of woods were in wild commotion. The Argus-eyed sky still held its steadfast watch, but an impenetrable black mask clung to the earth. At long intervals there arose from out the forest the cry of a wild beast—the anguish of the prey or the savage joy of the captor—and then for a time no sound save the monotonous ebb and flow of the sea of winds. Suddenly, a shrill whistle awoke the echoes, the meteor-like train sweeping across the sky wavered, faltered, and paused on the verge of the crag. Then the darkness was instarred with faint, swinging points of light, and there floated down upon the wind the sound of eager, excited voices.
“Ef them thar cars war ter drap off’n that thar bluff,” said the anxious Mrs. Yates, as she and her son, aroused by the unwonted noise, came out of the hut, and gazed upward at the great white glare of the headlight, “they’d ruin the turnip patch, worl’ without e-end.”
“Nothing whatever is the matter,” said the Pullman conductor, cheerily, to his passengers, as he re-entered his coach. “Only a little church on fire just beyond the curve of the road; the engineer couldn’t determine at first whether it was a fire built on the track or on the hillside.”
The curtains of the berths were dropped, sundry inquiring windows were closed, the travelers lay back on their hard pillows, the faint swinging points of light moved upward as the men with the lanterns sprang upon the platforms, the train moved slowly and majestically across the bridge, and presently it was whizzing past the little church, where the flames had licked up benches and pulpit and floor, and were beginning to stream through door and window, and far above the roof.
The miniature world went clanging along its way, careless of what it left behind, and the turnip patch was saved.
The wonderful phenomenon of the stoppage of the train had aroused the whole countryside, and when it had passed, the strange lurid glare high on the slope of the mountain attracted attention. There was an instant rush of the scattered settlers toward the doomed building. A narrow, circuitous path led them up the steep ascent among gigantic rocks and dense pine thickets; the roaring of the tumultuous wind drowned all other sounds, and they soon ceased the endeavor to speak to one another as they went, and canvass their suspicions and indignation. Turning a sharp curve, the foremost of the party came abruptly upon a man descending.
He had felt secure in the dead hour of night and the thick darkness, and the distance had precluded him from being warned by the stoppage of the train. He stood in motionless indecision for an instant, until Moses Carter, who was a little in advance of the others, made an effort to seize him, exclaiming, “This fire ez ye hev kindled, Painter Brice, will burn ye in hell forever!” He spoke at a venture, not recognizing the dark shadow, but there was no mistaking the supple spring with which the man threw himself upon his enemy, nor the keen ferocity that wielded the sharp knife. Hearing, however, in the ebb of the wind, voices approaching from the hill below, and realizing the number of his antagonists, the Panther tore himself loose, and running in the dark with the unerring instinct and precision of the wild beast that he was, he sped up the precipitous slope, and was lost in the gloomy night.
“Gin us the slip!” exclaimed Joel Ruggles, in grievous disappointment, as he came up breathless. “A cussed painter if ever thar war one.”