The Blue Ridge

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34. To-Night's The Night



Cal Parker helped Miss Emmy get supper that evening, as was fitting, in view of the fact that he consumed so much of it. To get square on his feet - that was now his greatest concern. The invalid role should hold him not another day or night.

With pity he observed that the devoted soul struggled for what cheer she showed, so heavy was the weight of worry on her shoulders. At every sound she started with dread for what might be about to be, shivered from relief over what was not. So often did her apprehensive eyes consult the clock during the long-drawn-out hours, that many stitches were dropped in the hug-me-tight, she was knitting to fit the manly proportions of Sandyred. Her devoutly moving lips showed that her attention was more upon prayer for the safety of the absentees than the conversation of her patientguest.

From Miss Emmy, Parker got a better Idea of what Verne must have suffered through her recent years of effort to get the family within the law than from anything the girl herself had said or done. In vain he assured her that the heat was oppressing her more than any likelihood of catastrophe, that the excursionists into Tennessee would return betimes, with money jingling as gaily as Old Tom's reiterated assurance that the newer, safer life should start on that day.

It was her nature to rejoice over small mercies, she declared; yet she "Intuited" that something had gone amiss. The fact that Cotton Eye Lee, sent early In the day to clear out all traces of the temporary still, had not returned by bedtime did nothing toward dispelling these forebodings. Neither was she cheered by Parker's request that she dress his shoulder with bandages which she pronounced unnecessarily taut and heavy.

Wontedly the earliest riser In the house, she found only a note to greet her when, shortly after daybreak, she roused from a troubled sleep.

Gone with Cotton to the clearing house. Hope to beat your intuitions back.

Calvin Parker.

One word of this message was fiction. Parker had not gone with Cotton, but after him. When his early investigation of the barn had showed the presence of neither the black man nor the white mule, he had rewarded the greetings of Teetotaler with a one-armed saddle-and-brldle throw.

Later, a vehement hee-haw from Solomon preceded the sight of the little hybrid tied to a tree at the base of Grumbly Bald. The mule snorted and jerked at his rope with unusual irritation, evidently having suffered there all night. With nostrils a-qulver, he seemed to be trying to impart some complaint.

"What's the matter, old chap?" Teetotaler's whinnies asked In equine parlance. "Are you just upset with all-overs after a bad night, or are you, Solomon, really wise to something gone wrong?"

At least, thus Parker chose to interpret the exchange. He gave the mule water from the near-by branch, then took both animals in lead. Turning into the rhododendron thicket at the spot where he had been so unexpectedly and so near-fatally halted on the occasion of his last visit, he had small difficulty in locating the improvised manufactory of contraband, as he had since been entrusted with full details of the wood-craft that covered it.

After tying the animals outside, he stooped and peered through what served as doorway. Beside the temporary, rock-built furnace, lay the object of his search - Cotton Eye Lee, with arms outstretched, head thrown back, mouth agape.

Parker reached the prone figure at one bound, and dropped to his knees for an examination - a certain experience of his own having fore-place In his mind. At once he congratulated himself that his right arm, grown incredibly strong from guidance of his wall-eyed steed, had not been the one disabled by Sandy's bit of lead. He gripped the negro's jumper and began a jouncing calculated to recall to sensibility any one not actually dead. Effect of this muscular alarm was slow; but eventually Cotton Eye groaned, batted his lids, forced them sufficiently open for recognition.

"Leave me be, you Infernal revenuer!" he protested. "You ain't no call to be grappling me. You're sick abed!"

Naturally Parker omitted to obey. "YouVe the one that's abed. Get up ! You haven't started the work you were sent to do. What do you mean - lying around in this condition when time is so important?"

Cotton Eye sat up, a species of indignation coming to the fore of his lethargy. "Ain't every inebriated genuFman got the natural-born right to sleep it off?"

There was no apology In this admission of the sad truth. There were, rather, signs of pride as well as debauch in the look of him.

"Where did you get the makings of a jag?"

Parker put the question in sincere perplexity. Tom had promised his dusky aide a quart of bumblings, but as a reward after the task of "busting up" had been accomplished, and had taken care that every drop of the last distillation had been removed beyond his reach.

The answer in words was succinct, but expanded by a proudful grin.

"Sniffin's!"

"Sniffings ? You mean to say that you "

"That no man needs drink, nohow, when he can sniff. Prognosticate your head inside yon covered tub, cap'n; yank the top clost around; pull your coat up to stuff the cracks; then keep a-sniffin\ deep and long. There ain't no need, as I can observate, for the fumes to travel down the throat and then up again to the head when by sniffin' them strong, they'll go straight up."

Parker stared at the brazen propounder of this discovery, then did sniff at the quandom container. The strong reek of uncured liquor which assailed his nostrils supported the claim of the black. With a stem front, he turned upon tlie delinquent, still sitting his haunches with the receptive attitude of one awaiting congratulations due after the accomplishment of something worth while against great odds.

"I'd hate to be in your shoes when Old Tom hears how you've betrayed your trust."

''But you-uns can't tell him I've drunk anything. I ain't had a nary drop - only sniffin's. Ain't every living man judmatically entitled to sniffin's, cap'n?"

Impatiently Parker interrupted the defensive whine. "Get your worthless body right side up, according to the law of gravity; douse your befuddled head Into -"

The irrepressible just naturally had to interrupt because of two words he never had heard before.

"Gravity - gravity," he mumbled. "Befuddled -defud "

Parker was not to be stopped. "You'll dip it into the pail of water I bring from the creek and get yourself ready to help me wipe this blockade factory off the face of the map before It's too late."

His energetic start was stopped at the door by a raucous laugh. From the bush outside, Rex Currie straightened his considerable self, the look of the laugh on his face.

"It's too late already for you, but not for me," he taunted.

Parker's free hand flashed to his hip; he pulled up, ready for the finish of the iight. To his amazement, however, Currie made no hostile move, his eyes busy with the details of the still house. All of a sudden the hillbilly's whole scheme flashed through Parker's brain, made him see redder than the buckeye juice which had reduced him to impulse at the carnival. He forgot his wound - everything except the lust to grapple with and destroy this mountain enemy who was always In the way, whose ambition was, through treachery, to gain the reward of the world.

"Too late, Currie? Your watch Is fast - It's never too late by mine !" he challenged, and sprang into attack.

The hillbilly, despite the advantage In his favor, did not meet the issue. Mayhap he had learned discretion of valor in that other combat on the cabin ledge. More likely he had attained his object in the definite location of the removed Metcalf still with the presence of Parker In the role of destroyer. Assuredly, If they ever got Cotton Eye to court, they could cpunt on him as witness, black weathervane that he was. Howbelt, In a flash, Currie disappeared Into the brush.

Parker, not wishing to shoot unless necessary, followed close until he saw his quarry's horse waiting with dropped bridle on the semi-trail that led to the cabin. Realizing that, unmounted, he would lose the race at its start, he turned back and put himself to reach Teetotaler In the shortest possible time.

The chances were against him, as he realized. Before he was In the saddle, Currie must have reached the highway. The speed of his one-eyed mount was never that of a pace-setter, and now seemed fated to be retarded.

At each low growl of the thunder which was Intermittently uttering promises of relief from the heat, Tee would balk, shudder, and essay a bolt toward the Metcalf barn. It took vigilance and a grip of steel to hold him reasonably straight.

Certain that Currie was on his way to the authorities to ''turncoat" on the Metcalfs, Parker's mind was intolerant of the chances against him. He wanted Currie, and drove his beast as never before.

Just once, as he thundered around a curve In the forest-fringed road, did he sight the family enemy ahead. Instantly he was reminded of the revolver which Old Tom, on leaving for the trip across the mountains, had pressed upon him. Averse as he was to gun-play, he dropped rein long enough to send several warnings ahead. Although, as he had noticed, Currie was armed, no reply barked back.

Teetotaler was uncommonly sound of wind, and put the next two miles behind him at satisfactory speed. This brought them to the valley where the road straightened out to a considerable view.

Yet there was no sign of the pursued; nothing animated except a light-colored team which approached at leisurely gait along the road that turned Into the highway for a final dip into Dismal Gap. To Parker It seemed Impossible that Currie could have outdistanced him so greatly. The driver of the team was a possible source of Information, and he spurred ahead to cut short the time of waiting. On drawing nearer, he recognized the railroad stage, with Tobe Riker on the box. Early as It seemed for the mail, he wasted no questions.

"Did you see Rex Currie cut past toward Dismal?" he demanded as he pulled up.

"Nope - hair nor hide of nobody. Leastwise, not yet."

"Not yet? Did you expect to see him?"

"Wouldn't have surprised me none."

"Nor me. I've been hot after him for half an hour. He can't have headed me far."

"What you chasing Rex for?"

Something akin to guilt - at least of self-consciousness - behind this question made Parker give the noncommittal driver a sharp glance.

"Come across, yourself, Rikerl Why did you say seeing him wouldn't have surprised you any? Why have you lashed your horses into foam and then slowed them near this crossing?"

The little whip scanned the horizon, watched a hawk in its volplaning, then delivered himself of another enigmatic reply.

" 'Pears like it's worth my while to believe In signs - I'm chasing them."

Parker left off considering him In favor of the situation. If Riker was telling theXnith - and from his carnival overture there seemed no reason why he should not - the hillbilly must be lurking somewhere behind him. Should he ride further toward Dismal and lie In wait or carry his search backward?

"I got a small passel of news this morning that'll likely make you-uns set up," the driver volunteered. "There come a pair of sure-enough revenue shcks to the Gap yesterday."

"That's stale news," Parker snapped. "I suppose that they, too, have slowed down, also being believers In signs?"

The driver threw a frightened glance around. "Can't say as I get you."

"I mean, Riker, that they, as well as you, are waiting for Currie to locate the Metcalf still, when they intend to swoop up and arrest Old Tom and Sandy and me, an accessory, if they can get their hands on us. I mean that you are a more miserable turncoat than Currie ever dreamed of being. To think that any man, for the sake of twenty-five dollars ---"

''Don't you call me cuss-names! I won't leave smy man insult me to my face, even if ---"

"Even if," Parker insisted, determined to substantiate the conclusions which had come to him, "you are hired to wait around and help him help himself to Miss Metcalf."

"Who - who told you that?"

"You did, in spite of your care not to! He's been insinuating into her mind all along that she, too, is likely to be arrested. He hopes to stampede her, through fear, into an escape with him. I thought that you admired her yourself?"

The swain nodded. "That's why I gave you a chance to take a hand to save her."

"And if I didn't take a hand, you'd see Currie through his contemptible scheme?"

"When you've clean run outen hope of getting a girl," the driver offered in mournful excuse, "it don't matter much which other man gets her. I'd rather it wouldn't be Rex; but I could do with the twenty-five. Of course Rex allows Verney will splice up with him to get her good name back, onct it's gone by his taking her to Tennessee. He's a double-dealing dog, sure enough. I'd kinda hoped that you-uns, as she seemed to take a shine to at first sight ---"

The flow of RIker's speech was arrested by Parker's expression.

The latter stood in his stirrups, peering toward the high-line of the horizon. There a pillar of smoke lifted Into the low-hanging sky.

"Looks to be on Fallaway Rim!" he exclaimed. "There's nothing around there to burn except - My cabin must be afire !"

Riker turned on the box, peered, straightway yielded to excitements of his own.

"It's the signal, by gum ! Dry Dryden gave 'em leave to burn her as a contribution to the cause and a judgment on you for foohng them so long. Currle's done found the still, and the posse will soon be on the way. I'd best be skitting along, stranger."

Having gathered up his reins, he paused, then lowered a cautious word, as if fearful that his splotch-freckled grays might hear.

"To-night's the night I was telling you about. By dark I'm to be waiting at the mouth of Roaring Fork. If the man what hires me loses a piece of baggage along the way, that hadn't ought to cut the driver's price none, had it? I'm counting on you to act, Mr. C. A. Parker, of New York!"

Act he must, and at once. Parker did not need to be told that. He fully realized it.