The Blue Ridge

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7. Razzle-Dazzle



There followed a development so weird as to suppress even the Incipient shrieks of the ladyleaguers. In irregular letters of fire across the rock wall appeared this erratically printed screed:

BeWarE ! !
D. RUM
wiLl
HaVE
his
WaY.
DuSt drY
yoU-alL
Will BE
WhEn
GaBrleL
fiNds
yoU
HeRe.

"The handwriting on the wall !" murmured Aunt Hootle In an unwontedly smooth, awed voice.

"Mene, mene, tekel, iipharsinJ' The sonorous quotation could come only from him who had a ministerial right to such. "Weighed in the balance ---"

"But we-all can't have been found wanting." The protest against further translation came out of the darkness In the wheeze of Hezeklah Plott.

"Weighed nothing - not this hefty crowd!"

The evening's guest got to his feet, struck a match and applied It to the wick of the globeless lamp. Holding that as a torch, he advanced to examine the supernatural sign.

"Just as I thought!" he exclaimed. "The wets around here seem to have soaked their humor In grog. They're just playing a trick on you with the aid of some luminous paint - a pigment of calcium sulphite mixed, I should say, with mastic varnish. At any rate, that combination absorbs light when exposed thereto, and emits It In darkness."

In support of this theory, the lamp wick flickered smoklly, then steadied. As Its light Increased, the phosphorescent warning dimmed.

Aunt Hootle also brightened under the logical explanation, which swept away her heart-stopping fear that the futility of the league's past efforts had brought upon them the displeasure of the Almighty.

"You say, colonel, that you sent Cotton Eye here to open up," she suggested. "Could he have perpetrated this shameful thing?"

"No, ma'am - reading and writing are beyond that black," said Dryden. "To-night's demonstration means chiefly that those pestiferous wets have discovered our meeting-place. Some one must have paid an early visit here and daubed yonder wall with the paint which Mr. Parker, suh, describes. It meant nothing to the nigger when he saw It In the dark and, as the light was burning when we gathered, we did not notice it. What put out the lamp puzzles me; we heard nothing that "

A roar from outside silenced all lesser voices. There came a rush of air from the tunnel-like passage. The flicker of the unprotected wick was again extinguished. There followed the sound of falling rock.

"It Is the end - dust dry to dry dust!"

A woman's wall filled Cal Parker's ears, even as a quantity of agitated femininity was thrust into his arms. Considering the fact that he had moved only the moment before to set down the lamp on the table, the one unprotected female present, fair In sex if not in tout ensemble, had executed a wellcalculated leap in the dark. Truly the new role thrust upon him had responsibilities !

"The demons of rum have entombed us; let us pray!" proposed the parson.

"Isn't there something written about prayer being more effective with an admixture of work?" Parker made objection.

Still obliging with one arm the spinster who, if she had not really swooned, was a limp enough characterization of one who had, he groped forward until he located a bench. Upon it he deposited her. Another match relighted the wick and again dimmed the wall-letters of fire. With the lamp held before him, he entered the passage to investigate.

As he stooped for the short tunnel, his foot caught in something upon the floor and he narrowly escaped a fall. On examination, he found the stumbling block to be the end of a two-inch iron pipe. Its suggestion cheered him greatly. The wets did not intend, then, to go the whole route with this, their latest grog-soaked trick, else they scarcely would have taken the precaution to assure a supply of air to those entombed by the powder explosion.

Doubtless, they meant thoroughly to frighten the members of the league from further efforts against their traffic In the quenching of the human thirst. Perhaps they Intended to claim credit for digging out the victims after the warning on the wall had been blotted Indelibly on their hearts.

But this discovery he could not share with those behind, since the air was over-burdened with ministerial supplications, well under way.

Within the tunnel, he found that, although the exit had been sealed by the recent blast, the litter of rocks and shale extended only a few feet. The explosive must have been placed inexpertly, its force thrown outward. Unless removal of the obstruction should cause a fresh slide, it looked possible to claw out a passage.

"If one of you worthies will get a leave of absence from the Lord - will wriggle in here and hold the light for me," he shouted back into the chamber, I've an idea you won't need to pray."

There came response from the farmer of increasingly melancholy look. Parker drew on a pair of gloves for the protection of his uncalloused hands, before attacking the barrier. He moved the larger rocks and passed them behind him, the while scooping back the shattered shale. Soon he was able to execute a hole large enough for the passage of his lank frame.

"Out again!" he congratulated himself as he straightened up in the open gully, much as he had done after his recent wriggle from the stage.

The passage would have to be enlarged for the rescue of Dr. Hezekiah, the colonel, and the farmer's wife; the others could crawl through at once. Some one acquainted with the neighborhood could then go for tools stronger than gloves in ribbons and fingers blood-stained. Through the opening he wirelessed this order of procedure to his volunteer, who in turn transmitted it to those in the chamber.

Aunt Hootie came first, bewailing the fact that she had not been handicapped with embonpoint instead of the spouse whose services to the mortal mouths of men she valued even higher than her own to their eternal souls. The secretary had been jolted into recovery from her swoon by discovery of the damage done her best "meeting dress." The Brand scorched through on the heels of her indignant exclamations. Then came the parson with the news that the farmer would not leave his farmeress. With even more vigor than he had put into the plea for Divine help, he departed on the run toward the Dryden homestead for pick, shovel and possible assistance.

In half an hour after the good man's return with Cotton Eye Lee, for once available when needed, the opening was large enough to emit the heaviest of the "stalwarts." Colonel Dryden, as befitted so substantial a leader, was last to materialize and with him brought the query interrupted by the blast.

"I want to ask you eye-witnesses of this razzledazzle, what put out that lamp? If there had been any report of gun-fire, now, or if "

"I distinctly heard the thud of a bullet against the wall," interrupted Dr. Hezekiah.

Again Cal Parker essayed practical explanation of the seemingly miraculous.

"There's a chap up New York way named Maxim who makes a silencer for rifles and revolvers. Do you folks happen to know whether any of the Dismal wets has invested in one?"

All chins wagged in the negative; then soon the farmer's dropped to his chest and a standstill.

"There's one fellow loafering hereabouts," admitted he in deepening melancholia, "who has done boasted how he's got his repeater 'charmed' for slicks and like pests. A silencer - do you-all reckon that could be what's charmed Rex Currie's gun?"

So, Parker commented in thought. The handsome hillbilly again! Being somewhat contentious himself, he must watch for a way more forceful than self-protection to retaliate.