Round Anvil Rock: A Romance

by Nancy Huston Banks

William Pressley said nothing more; he suspected that his uncle had been drinking a little more heavily than common. Moreover, it scarcely seemed worth while to argue with blind prejudice, drunk or sober.

"Then if you've got nothing more to say, it's with Alston that I will settle this matter. But all the same, I forbid you to go near Duff's Fort. I have a right to forbid you, as a member of my household. I have a right to forbid any one belonging to my family to do anything that touches my own honor, my good name. And this touches both to the quick."

"Very well, sir. I shall tell Mr. Alston what you say. I must, of course, give some reason for breaking a professional engagement," said William.

"I shall tell him a few things myself," stormed the judge. "It's all very well for him to put on his high-and-mighty tolerant air about the state of things hereabouts, and to keep on saying, soothingly, that everything will come right after a while, as it does in all new countries; but neither he nor any honest man can afford to handle pitch. It sticks to the cleanest hands. See that you keep yours out of it. Nobody belonging to me shall be smirched—and just now, too, when we are going to cleanse the whole country of it at last, thank God! We have only been waiting for a chance to carry out the plan which was arranged while General Jackson was here. Joe Daviess has now found the opportunity, and our campaign has already begun. He is determined to put it in motion before he leaves for Tippecanoe—"

"Then he is really going?" broke in William, quickly, with a marked change of tone and manner.

The judge paid no attention to the question. He seldom noticed what his nephew said, and his thoughts were now solely of the undertaking which absorbed him heart and soul. After thinking deeply in silence for a few moments, he spoke of the plan more fully, even freely, as he was in the habit of speaking in the bosom of his own family. There was no one else present; even the servants were gone out of the room. Moreover, he had been drinking, as his nephew suspected, and the stimulant, together with the excitement, carried him beyond all prudence. He did not even lower his tone.

"Yes, we begin the good work this very night. We've got the chance we have been waiting for—the chance to catch those cutthroats red-handed! We had news yesterday that three men were coming over the Wilderness Road, bringing a large sum of money to buy land. The negotiation has been under way for weeks. We have learned that this fact, and the time when these men are expected to pass through here, are both as well known at Duff's Fort as they are to us. We have also had news of the coming of a large flatboat with a rich cargo, which is due to pass down the river by Duff's Fort some time during to-morrow night. Those hungry demons are said to be ready and waiting for the travellers by land and water—and we are ready and waiting for them! Just let them lift a hand to rob or murder, and we will be on hand, too! The attorney-general has sent a large posse of picked men down the river to come up overland on the further side of the fort. Another posse has gone round by the swamp to guard that quarter, and there is a boat in readiness on the other side of the river, well armed and fully manned. Yes, we've got the scoundrels safe enough this time! We've run them to earth at last. There is only one loophole, and the attorney-general himself is to guard that—the path round Anvil Rock. That is the band's highway. The rock is their rallying-point and we couldn't see at first how we were to watch it without putting the scoundrels on their guard. To send any number of men, even two or three, in that direction, would have been to give the alarm at once—as the moon is about full. After consultation, it was decided that the attorney-general alone should attend to this delicate part of the plan. It was his own suggestion that he should go to Anvil Rock immediately after dark to-morrow night, and wait there in the shadow—watching everything that passes—till his men join him, after beating the bushes and going over the country with a drag-net. It's a dangerous task that he has taken on himself, notwithstanding that the posse guarding the swamp should be in hearing of his voice by the time he reaches Anvil Rock. I told him so; but he said that it must be done by some one man, since more than one would defeat our whole undertaking, and that it was the duty of no one but himself. However, he has ordered all his men—the different posses sent out in various directions—to draw in toward Anvil Rock, so that he will not be there long alone, and not at any time beyond the hearing of his men, should he find it necessary to call for help. Anyway, I couldn't dissuade him from going alone. It was no more than General Jackson had done, he declared, when I protested; and he also thought that being alone made it unlikely that he would be observed. The main object was for him to be near by when his men should need him, and that purpose would be best served by his waiting in the shadow of Anvil Rock. I said what I could, and urged him to let me go with him, but he stuck to it that only one man must go." The judge spoke anxiously, wearily now, all anger forgotten. "And he will be there. He never knew what fear was, in doing his duty; he would walk straight into the devil's den and attack him single-handed, without the quiver of a nerve."

"Allow me to congratulate you, sir," William Pressley said distantly, with an air of polite concession to somewhat foolish enthusiasm. "I think you have perhaps been rather more troubled over certain outbreaks of lawlessness than you need have been. They are to be expected, I suppose, in all new countries, and they gradually disappear before the advance of civilization, as Mr. Alston says. All that is in the natural order of human events. However, since you have been so much disturbed, I am truly pleased that you are so soon to be relieved of all uneasiness from this source. May I ask, sir, if you can tell me the precise date of the attorney-general's departure—for the seat of war, I mean—for Tippecanoe?"

The judge shook his head, hardly hearing the inquiry. The agitation which had shaken him was leaving him greatly spent. The old look of abstraction came back, quickly dulling his gaze, and, sinking down in his chair, he very soon began to nod and doze.

"With your permission, sir," William went on with a touch of sarcasm in his cool, slow voice, "I should like to call upon Mr. Alston to-morrow. You have, I presume, no objection to my going to see him in his own house. It is impossible to drop a matter of business without a word of explanation. And if you have no objection, I will mention to him the matters of which you have just been speaking. No one has a deeper interest in the public welfare, and certainly no one could be more eminently discreet. However, I shall, of course, speak in the strictest confidence."