When 'Bear Cat' Went Dry

by Charles Neville Buck

Decidedly he must effect a secret coalition with Bear Cat Stacy. If he could make some such arrangement as he already had with Towers, it might work out to mutual satisfaction. It might be embarrassing for Bear Cat to raid his kinsmen. It was equally so for Tapper to raid Towers' favorites. But by exchanging information they could both obtain results as harmonious as the arrangement of Jack Spratt and his wife. It was all a very pretty scheme for double-and-triple-crossing—but the first difficulty was in seeing Bear Cat himself.

Finally Mark decided to mail a letter to his man. For all his hiding out it was quite likely that there was a secret line of communication open between his shifting sanctuary and his home. He wrote tactfully inviting Turner to meet him across the Virginia line where he would be safe from local enemies. He gave assurance that he had no intention of serving any kind of summons and that he would come to the meeting place unaccompanied. He held out the bait of using his influence toward a dismissal of the prosecution against Bear Cat's father. Then he waited.

In due time he received a reply in Bear Cat's own hand.

"Men that want to see me must come to me. I don't go to them," was the curt reply. "I warn you that it will be a waste of time, but if you will come to the door of the school-house at the forks of Skinflint and Little Slippery at nine o'clock Tuesday night there will be somebody to meet you, and bring you to me. If you are not alone or have spies following you, your trouble will be for naught. You won't see anybody. Bear Cat Stacy."

At the appointed time and in strict compliance with the designated conditions Mark Tapper stood at the indicated point.

At length a shadow, unrecognizable in the night, gradually detached itself from the surrounding shadows and a low voice commanded, "Come on."

Mark Tapper followed the guide whose up-turned collar and down-drawn hat would have shielded his features even had the darker cloak of the night not done so. After fifteen minutes spent in tortuous twisting through wire-like snarls of thorn, the voice said: "Stand quiet—an' wait."

Left alone, the revenuer realized that his guide had gone back to assure himself that no spies were following at a distance. Tapper knew this country reasonably well, but at the end of an hour he confessed himself lost. Finally he came out on a narrow plateau-like level and heard the roar of water far below him. He saw, too, what looked like a window cut in the solid night curtain itself. Then the shadow-shape halted. "Go on in thar," it directed, and with something more like trepidation than he cared to admit, Tapper groped forward, felt for the doorstep with his toe and rapped.

"Come in," said a steady voice, and again he obeyed.

He stood in an empty cabin and one which had obviously been long tenantless. A musty reek hung between the walls, but on the hearth blazed a hot fire. The wind sent great volumes of choking smoke eddying back into the room from the wide chimney and gusts buffeted in, too, through the seams of the rotting floor.