  That same evening, just at dusk, Marion came upon a fresh and startling mystery. She had climbed the hill at the back of the ancient whipsawed cabin which was occupied by Mrs. McAlpin and her friends. Beside the bubbling brook that sang so softly, she had found she could think calmly. There was reason enough for calm thinking, too. They had entered into this business of buying the Powell coal tract, expecting only mild adventure and possibly a large profit. Mysterious things were happening to Florence. She was sure of that. By the aid of the Silent Alarm she had received a message from her. The message had warned her to retreat, to return to the whipsawed cabin and wait. She had obeyed. It was indeed very singular. “What can have happened?” Marion now asked herself for the hundredth time. “Wherever she may be, she can hardly be out of reach of the Silent Alarm. Darkness will find me again on the trail that leads to the crest of Pine Mountain. “She must succeed! Must! Must!” she told herself. “And I must let her know. I surely must!” That very afternoon she had received information of tremendous importance. In the whipsawed cabin was a small radio receiving set. The long twilight of the mountains often slipped away with a score of mountain people sitting on the hillside listening to the sweet strains of music that came from this radio and floated through the open windows. At times, even in the afternoon, they tuned in on Louisville that they might catch some news of the outside world. On this particular afternoon, wearied from her long hike of the previous night, Marion had been lolling half asleep on the couch when of a sudden she sat upright, wide awake. Her ear had caught the words, “M. and N. Railroad.” Here might be important news. It was important, for the announcer, after a brief pause in which he had perhaps referred to his notes, had gone on: “At a meeting to-day of the Board of Directors of the M. and N. Railroad, it was decided that a spur would be built along the south slope of Pine Mountain. This work, which is to be rushed to completion within a year, will tap vast tracks of valuable coal land.” Marion had risen trembling from the couch. She had wanted to cry, to laugh, to shout. Here was great news indeed. Coming right in from the air, it had beyond doubt given them many hours of advantage over their rival, the agent of the Inland Coal and Coke Company. But she had not shouted, nor had she cried nor laughed. She had climbed the hillside and had stretched out on the leafy slope by the murmuring brook to think. She had decided to wait for darkness. Then she would hurry away over the four miles that led to the crest of the low mountain. Once there she would kindle a beacon fire. Down deep in her heart she prayed that Florence might catch the gleam of that fire as she had the one of the night before, and that having caught her joyous message, she might be free to act. “If only it would hurry and get dark!” she whispered to herself. “If only it would. Then I could slip up there and send the message.” But what was this? Of a sudden this all important problem was driven from her mind. From out the clump of mountain ivy that skirted the hill above the whipsawed cabin there had darted a shadow. Who could it be? No mysterious persons were known to be about, but she could not be sure. Men hid out in these hills—rough, dangerous men who were wanted by the law. The cheery lamplight that suddenly burst forth through the small square window of the whipsawed cabin below reassured her. There were friends in that house, her friends Mrs. McAlpin and little Hallie. Even as she settled back again to think of their great problems, she was given another start. Outside the window, into the square of light that poured forth from it, there had crept the face of a man. It was not a charming face to behold, but rather an alarming one. Beneath bushy eyebrows gleamed a pair of beady black eyes. The nose was hawk-like and the cheeks and chin were covered by a stubby beard. It was a face to make one shudder, and Marion did shudder. She drew back as if to bury herself in the giant chestnut at her back. Even as she did so she saw the man start, saw an unuttered exclamation spring to his lips. What had he seen? What had he hoped to see? There was mystery enough about that whipsawed cabin. Once there had been gold in it—much gold. Preacher Gibson had hinted that it might still be there. It had been brought there many years before, just after the Civil War. Jeff Middleton, who with the help of a neighbor had built the cabin, had died suddenly in a feud. The gold had vanished. No one, so far as was known, had ever found it. Who was this man at the window? Did he at last have a clue to the whereabouts of the gold, and had he come to search for it, only to find the cabin occupied? Little Hallie, too, was quite as mysterious as the whipsawed cabin in which she lived. She had been brought to the cabin door on a stormy night—a beautiful eight year old child, unconscious from an ugly blow on her head. While she was being cared for, the man who brought her had vanished. He had not returned. That was three weeks ago. Efforts to discover the identity of the child—other than the name “Hallie,” which had come from her own lips—had been unavailing. Her memory appeared to have gone with the blow on her head. Fortunately, Mrs. McAlpin had studied medicine in her younger days. Under her efficient care Hallie had become the cheery joy of the whipsawed house. Did this mysterious man know something about little Hallie? Or was he just some wanderer looking for food and shelter? This last seemed the most probable. Yet, as Marion came to this conclusion, she suddenly learned that this man knew something about one member of the household, for even as she sat there he passed close enough to touch her, mumbling as he passed: “Hit’s her. Hit shorely are!” The girl’s heart went into double-quick time as the man came near to her. It slowed down very little as he vanished into the night. Questions were pounding away at her brain. Who was this man? What did he want? To whom had he referred? To Mrs. McAlpin? To Hallie? “Must have been Hallie,” she told herself. “And now perhaps he will steal upon us unawares and carry her away.” Even as she thought this she felt that it was a foolish fear. Why should he? Then of a sudden, as a new thought struck her, she sprang to her feet. A cry was on her lips, but it died unuttered. It had suddenly occurred to her that if this man knew something about this mysterious little girl he should be called back and questioned. She did not call him back. She was afraid, very much afraid of that man. “Anyway,” she reassured herself, “he probably didn’t mean Hallie at all. Probably meant Mrs. McAlpin. She’s been here three summers, and has been up every creek for miles around.” With this as a concluding thought, and having caught the delicious odor of spring chicken roasting on the hearth, she hurried down to supper. As she entered the cabin, Mrs. McAlpin, who was a famous cook, lifted the lid of the small cast-iron oven that had been buried beneath the hearth coals for an hour. At once the room was filled with such delectable fragrance as only can come from such an oven. Since the cabin had been purchased by its present owner, it had not been disfigured by a stove. An immense stone fireplace graced the corner of each of the four rooms. The cooking was done on the hearth of the room used as kitchen and dining room. “Isn’t it wonderful!” Marion exclaimed as she hung her sweater on the deer’s antlers which served as a coat rack. “Just to live like this! To be primitive as our ancestors were! I shall never forget it, not as long as I live!” Supper was over. Darkness had fallen “from the wings of night” when Marion slipped alone out of the whipsawed cabin. As she entered the shadows that lay across the path that led away from the cabin, she caught sound of a movement off to the right. Her heart skipped a beat, but she did not pause. The message she had to send could not be longer delayed. And yet, as she hurried on, she could not help wondering who might have been behind the bushes. Was it the prowler, he of the beady black eyes and hooked nose, who had peered in at the cabin window? If it were, what did he want? What did he mean by that strange exclamation: “Hit’s her?” Had he seen Hallie? Did he know her? Would he attempt to carry her away? She hoped not. The little girl had become a spot of sunshine in that brown old cabin. Two hours later the proceedings of the previous night were being re-enacted. Marion’s beacon fire appeared on the mountain’s crest. Florence caught it at once and flashed back her answer. There followed a half hour of signaling. At the end of this half hour Florence found herself sitting breathless among the husks in the cabin loft. “Oh!” she breathed. “What news! The railroad is to be built. I wonder if the land is still for sale?” “And I,” she exclaimed, squaring her shoulders, “I must be afraid no longer. Somehow I must find my way down this slope to Caleb Powell’s home. I must buy that land.” She patted the crinkly bills, five hundred dollars, still pinned to the inside of her blouse. Then, slipping quickly down the ladder, she stepped into the cool, damp air of night. Yet, even as she turned to go down the mountain, courage failed her. Above her, not so far away but that she could reach it in an hour, hung the mountain’s crest. Dim, dark, looming in the misty moonlight, it seemed somehow to beckon. Beyond it, down the trail, lay home, her mountain home, and loving friends. She had experienced thus far only distrust, captivity without apparent cause, the great fear of worse things to come. “No,” she said, “I can’t go back.” Her feet moved slowly up the trail. “And yet I must!” She faced the other way. “I can’t go back and say to them, ‘I have no money for the school. I went on a mission and failed because I was afraid.’ No, No! I can’t do that.” Then, lest this last resolve should fail her, she fairly ran down the trail. She had hurried on for fully fifteen minutes when again she paused, paused this time to consider. What plan had she? What was she to do? She did not know the way to the home of her friend, nor to the home of Caleb Powell. Indeed, she did not so much as know where she was. How, then, was she to find Caleb Powell? “Only one way,” she told herself. “I must risk it. At some cabin I must inquire my way.” Fifteen minutes later she found herself near a cabin. A dim light shone in the window. For a moment she hesitated beside the footpath that led to its door. “No,” she said at last, starting on, “I won’t try that one.” She passed three others before her courage rose to the sticking point. At last, realizing that the evening was well spent and that all would soon be in bed, she forced herself to walk boldly toward a cabin. A great bellowing hound rushed out at her and sent her heart to her mouth. The welcome sound of a man’s voice silenced him. “Who’s thar?” the voice rang out. “It’s—it’s I, Florence Huyler.” The girl’s voice trembled in spite of her effort to control it. “Let’s see.” The man held a candle to her face. “Step inside, Miss.” “It—I—I can’t stop,” she stammered, “I—I only wanted to ask where Caleb Powell lives.” “Hey, Bill,” the man turned to someone within the cabin. “Here’s that girl we was lookin’ for this evenin’.” “Naw ’t’ain’t. Don’t stand to reason.” The man’s feet came to the floor with a crash. The girl’s heart sank. She recognized the voices of the men. They were the men who had visited the deserted cabin. The hollyhock sentinel had done their bit, but all to no purpose. She was once more virtually a prisoner. “Guess you come to the wrong cabin, Miss. We are plumb sorry, but hit are our bond an’ duty to sort of ask you to come in and rest with we-all a spell. Reckon you ain’t et none. Hey, Mandy! Set on a cold snack for this here young lady.” Florence walked slowly into the cabin and sank wearily into a chair. Her head, which seemed suddenly to grow heavy, sank down upon her breast. She had meant so well, and this was what fate had dealt her. Suddenly, as she sat there filled with gloomy thoughts, came one gloomier than the rest—a thought as melancholy as a late autumn storm. “Why did we not think of that?” she almost groaned aloud. She recalled it well enough now. Mrs. McAlpin had once told her of the queer mixing of titles to land which existed all over the mountains. In the early days, when land was all but worthless, a man might trade a thousand acres of land for a yoke of oxen and no deed given or recorded. “Why,” Mrs. McAlpin had said, “when I purchased the little tract on which this cabin stands I was obliged to wait an entire year before my lawyer was able to assure me of a deed that would hold.” “A year!” Florence repeated to herself. “A year for a small tract! And here we are hoping to purchase a tract containing thousands of acres which was once composed of numerous small tracts. And we hope to get a deed day after to-morrow, and our commission a day later.” She laughed in spite of herself. “If we succeed in making the purchase, which doesn’t seem at all likely, Mr. Dobson may be two years getting a clear title to the land. Will he pay our commission before that? No one would expect it. And if we don’t get it before that time what good will it do our school?” “No,” she told herself, facing the problem squarely, “there must be some other way; though I’ll still go through with this if opportunity offers.” In her mental search for “some other way” her thoughts returned to the ancient whipsawed house on Laurel Branch. She had heard old preacher Gibson’s story of Jeff Middleton’s return from the Civil War with a great sack of strange gold pieces. “Hit’s hid som’ers about that ar whipsawed cabin,” the tottering old mountain preacher had declared, “though whar it might be I don’t rightly know. Been a huntin’ of it right smart o’ times and ain’t never lit onto narry one of them coins yet.” “If only we could find that gold,” Florence told herself, “all would be well. That is, if we win the election—if we elect our trustee.” She smiled a little at this last thought; yet it was no joking matter, this electing a trustee back here in the Cumberlands. Many a grave on the sun kissed hillsides, where the dogwood blooms in springtime and ripe chestnuts come rattling down in the autumn, marks the spot where some lusty mountaineer lies buried. And it might be written on his tombstone, “He tried to elect a trustee and failed because the other man’s pistol gun found its mark.” Elections are hard fought in the Cumberlands. Many a bitter feud fight has been started over a school election. Surely, as she sat there once more a prisoner, held by these mysterious mountaineers, there was enough to disturb her. |
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