In spite of the place’s uninviting aspect, I welcomed it as a safe refuge from the storm and the night. Tabal seemed not to see it, and was plodding steadily ahead a few feet in advance of me.
“Hold on!” I called. “Here is a shelter for the night. No need of going further.”
He turned with a strange expression in his face.
“For God sake, don’t stop hyar! We must go on. Nothin’ could hire me to stop in thet ’air shell.”
His set determined way of speaking, together with his words, I could not at that time account for, and without waiting for an explanation, replied: “Stop here we must, in half an hour ’twill be night,” and pushing through the snow-burdened laurel, in a few steps I gained the cabin door.
A violent hand was laid on my shoulder that instant. My blanket was almost torn from my grasp, and I reeled backward, with difficulty rescuing myself from falling.
It was Tabal who had thus struck me. Taken by surprise at his uncalled-for action, I could but listen to what he said.
“Come, come, we must make tracks from this place! You’d better die in the snow a peaceful death than be toted away by hants. Thar be a power ’o hants hyar. I’ve seed ’em an’ seed blood, blood! on the floor and nary man in the settlement but what’s heerd ’em. Don’t for all ye love in the world, don’t stop hyar, but foller me and in two mile we’ll be at Ramear’s.”
As he finished his excited remarks, with one hand still on my shoulder, he was standing partly in the cabin; while I, puzzled at his extraordinary statement, and with the earnest, almost desperate, manner in which he urged me to leave the spot, had sunk down on a half-rotten log that lay across the doorway. I really could have gone no further if I had wished, and instead of what I had heard from him awakening my fears and strengthening me to travel on, it aroused my curiosity to remain and see upon what his superstition was based.
On making known to him my exhausted condition and determination to remain, an abject terror overspread the mountaineer’s face, and for several minutes there was a struggle within him whether to stay and brave the well known horrors of the place, or to expose his cowardice by leaving and pushing on alone in the darkness and driving snow. The latter alternative did not hold out very bright prospects, and in spite of professed superstition, mountaineers dread nothing much more than being called cowards. Meanwhile I laughed down and shamed his fears, and the bribe of a half gallon of “moonshine” completed the business.