  Marion was wide awake. She lay beneath home-woven blankets in Patience Madden’s cabin. The room was dark. It was night; time for sleep. The mountain side was very still. Even the stream, Pounding Mill Creek, tumbling down Little Black Mountain, murmured softly. “I should sleep,” she told herself. “To-morrow is the big day. Election. Trial. One big day. Twenty-for hours must decide all.” Do coming events truly cast their shadows before them, and do their shadows disturb us, rob us of our sleep? However that may be, Marion could not sleep. At last, rising noiselessly, for Patience slept peacefully in the narrow bed next to her own, she threw a blanket over her shoulders and stole out upon the porch. Here she dropped into a rustic chair to sit staring dreamily at the moon. “Old moon,” she whispered, “what do you see to-night?” Had the moon answered her question she would have sprung to her feet in alarm. As it was, she sat quite still, sat there until with a sudden start she caught the slow and steady tramp of horses on the trail below. “Who—who can that be?” she whispered as she shrank far back into the shadows. She was soon enough to know. Two horses swung around a curve in the trail not five rods from the cabin. At that instant the moon, coming out from behind a filmy cloud, shone full upon them. “A tall slim man and a short one,” she thought to herself. “Sounds vaguely familiar. Where have I—” She started suddenly. Florence had told her of them. These were the men who had held her prisoner when she had gone to the back of Pine Mountain to get an option on the Powell coal tract. A second shock following this one came near knocking her from her chair. The tall man carried a bundle—something wrapped in a blanket. “A child,” she whispered. A chill ran up her spine. She hardly knew why. A second later she knew. As the horses wheeled sharply to avoid a great boulder that lay against the trail, the face of the child, lighted up by the moon, became plainly visible. “Little Hallie!” Marion exclaimed under her breath. In an instant she was out of her chair and in the room shaking the mountain girl and whispering hoarsely: “Patience! Patience! Wake up! They’ve kidnapped little Hallie!” “Wha—where? Why?” the mountain girl stammered, still half asleep. Sinking down upon the bed and burying her face in her hands, Marion tried to think. Little Hallie had been kidnapped. Why? For ransom? Nothing seemed more absurd. Who would pay? The child had been poorly dressed when she was brought to their cabin. “And yet,” Marion thought, “what do we really know of her?” She caught herself short up. This was no time for speculation. What was to be done? There were no men in the cabin. She was alone with the sixteen year old mountain girl. The nearest cabin was a half mile down the creek. “Patience,” she said suddenly, “there are no men here to follow them. They have kidnapped little Hallie. They can’t mean her any good. Shall we go?” For answer the mountain girl sprang out of the room and went racing down the stairs. A lamp was lighted. Rough, serviceable garments of khaki were scrambled into, shoes were hurriedly laced. They were ready to go when Marion thought of food. They might be away for hours, perhaps days. Snatching down a bag she raced to the kitchen, there to fill the bag with corn pone, cold sweet potatoes, crackers, cookies and cheese. When she returned, to her astonishment she found Patience calmly ramming home a charge in the long-barreled squirrel rifle which had hung over the fireplace. “Will—will it shoot?” she faltered. “Awful straight.” “Can you shoot it?” The mountain girl gave her a look of scorn. “In the mountains everyone shoots.” “Good! I’m glad!” There was warmth in the girl’s tone. There was comfort in knowing that though there was no man in their party, there was a rifle carried by a girl who knew well how to handle it. A moment more and they were feeling the damp night air upon their cheeks. It was a narrow trail they were following. Now and then as they hurried forward the dew drenched branch of dogwood or rhododendron slapped them full in the face. Here and there some wild creature, frightened from the trail, went bounding away into the bush. It was spooky enough, this climbing higher and higher up the side of Little Black Mountain in the dead of night. Spooky and dangerous, too. What if those men, catching the sound of their footsteps behind them, should draw aside from the trail and waylay them? Marion dared not dwell on this. One thing was uppermost in her mind—the saving of Little Hallie. How was this to be done? She could not tell. The answer would be there when the time came. At all hazards the men must be followed. So, drenched by dripping dew, torn at by out-reaching brambles, catching the faint tinge of waters in the gulch far below, they ascended higher and higher until at last they had reached the crest. “See!” whispered Patience as they rested here. “There are Hallie’s footprints!” It was true. Having dismounted, that they might rest their tired muscles, the men had lifted the child to the ground. Marion found comfort in this. “They can’t be entirely bad,” she told herself. “They think of the child’s comfort.” A moment’s rest, and they were away along the trail that followed the ridge for some distance. They marched along in silence until they came to the spot where the trail left the ridge to plunge down the steep slope on the other side. “Listen!” Patience whispered, suddenly gripping her companion’s arm. As they listened, breathless, from somewhere far below there came the deep, drawn-out bay of a hound. “See!” exclaimed the mountain girl, pointing to the ground. Where the trail left the ridge, a fresh track had joined that of the kidnappers. It was the trail of a man and two huge dogs. “Hounds!” whispered Patience. “They have hounds. Against these we have no chance. They will smell us a long way off. They will come after us. I can shoot but one. The other—” she paused to shudder. “And yet we must go on! Think of little Hallie!” “Yes,” said the brave mountain girl, “we must go on!” Turning, she led the way down the mountain. |
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