"Git thar, did ye say, Wade, git thar! Ye durn fool, d'ye think them farmers'd have their plans spoiled by that old hot-headed Irisher? No, he didn't git thar with it. Do ye mind ther old-fashioned zigzag rail fences in some parts o' this kintry?"
Wade remembered having seen them.
"Well, at a certain turn in ther road whar ther fence is built out o' 'em, a powerful gang o' good farmers met Mike Donovan an' his fine train o' terbacker, an' axed him ef he wouldn't please be so kind an' turn back with it an' store it in his barns a little while longer. 'No,' said Mike, 'I won't,' an' he whipped his horses an' said, 'Git up!' But them horses couldn't budge a inch. 'Turn back,' said ther leader. Mike jest sot thar an' never moved. All ther time men was a-gittin' them rails off that old rail fence an' a-pilin' 'em up in ther road. Still ther stubborn Mike Donovan wouldn't turn back. They kivered him with a forty-four Winchester, while one wagonload o' terbacker was piled on ther rails. 'Will ye turn back, Mike?' they asked. Mike said never a word. 'Nuther load was piled on ther rails, an' a row o' rails on top o' that, an' they axed Mike agin ter turn back. He jest stood thar a-sullen. Every load o' terbacker was piled on ther rails, one row o' rails an' one load o' terbacker, an' still old Mike wouldn't give in. Well, ye kin guess ther rest, Wade, cain't ye? No? Well, that was one o' ther puttiest fires I ever seed, an' ther air was so full o' pure terbacker smoke that some o' them told me they didn't have ter smoke their pipes fer three or four days after that fire. All they had to do was to git out on their porch, raise their head a little an' draw in a good long breath, then spit her out, an' they was done smoking fer a while. Mike Donovan—did ye ax what 'bout him, ther durn fool? Course he turned back, but he didn't have no money, nur any terbacker ter store in his barns."
Daylight was approaching and Peter, looking in the direction of Jack Wade's cabin, exclaimed, "Thar's yer hoss now, Wade."
CHAPTER X
Is the longing of the human soul but a delusion? Does it catch the fragrance of immortality, as the little honeybee catches the fragrance of the dew-dipped mountain flowers, and reach out with a longing far beyond human ken?
Jack Wade sighed as he sat out on his little porch gazing through the sunlight to the eastward. Far away, yet not so far, loomed the outline of the Cumberland, as a shadow rising out of the mist, towering above the lesser mountains nearer. All round him in his own community men were making silent and cautious preparation for some unknown deed. Beyond the hills, where the agitation was greatest, men were making preparation for terrible destruction. Orders were being sent hurriedly through the country, the courier being unknown and unseen.
Wade knew that the messenger of destruction, if not death, was "the Wolf, Night-Watch," the very person whom he had long been looking for and feeling for, but to no avail, for he had found him not. The very men whom he would have at one time killed on sight, had he known then as much as he did now, were those who had on more than one occasion saved him from death, men whom he now believed had wound themselves so thoroughly about his heart as to cause him to love rather than hate them. Through his mind ran thoughts of things that had been done so long as to be almost forgotten by others, but they clung to his memory as a reminder of what men would do again. In his heart was nothing but hatred for the man who shot Fred Conover to death, and he would far rather put a bullet through his heart than any other man he knew, even Al Thompson. Thompson, he knew, was always somewhere about looking for him, that he might put a bullet into his brain or a knife into his heart.
Wade was to the Judsons a seemingly fast friend, and therefore must be firmly against the Thompsons. Regarded in this light, it was only necessary to meet one of the avowed enemy and someone would go out of this world of trouble.