A Pagan of the Hills.

by Charles Neville Buck.

CHAPTER I

"It's plum amazin' ter heer ye norate thet ye've done been tradin' and hagglin' with old man McGivins long enough ter buy his logs offen him and yit ye hain't never met up with Alexander. I kain't hardly fathom hit noways."

The shambling mountaineer stretched himself to his lean length of six feet two, and wagged an incredulous head. Out of pale eyes he studied the man before him until the newcomer from "down-below" felt that, in the att.i.tude, lay almost the force of rebuke. It was as though he stood self-convicted of having visited Naples without seeing Vesuvius.

"But I haven't been haggling with Mr. McGivins," he hastened to remonstrate. "On the contrary we have done business most amicably."

The native of the tangled hills casually waved aside the distinction of terms as a triviality and went on: "I hain't nuver heered tell of no man's tradin' in these hyar Kentucky mountains without he haggled considerable. Why thet's what tradin' denotes. Howsomever what flabbergasts me air thet ye hain't met up with Alexander. Stranger, ye don't know nothin' about this neck o' the woods a-tall!"

Parson Acup, so called for the funereal gravity of his bearing and expression, and Brent the timber-buyer, stood looking down from beetling cliffs rigidly bestowed with collossal and dripping icicles.

To their ears came a babel of shouts, the grating of trees, long sleet-bound but stirring now to the thaw--the roar of blasting powder and the rending of solid rock.

Brent laughed. "Now, that you've fathomed the density of my ignorance," he suggested, "proceed to enlighten me. Upon what does this Alexander rest his fame? What character of man is he?"

"Wa'al, stranger, I've done always held ther notion thet we folks up hyar in these benighted hills of old Kaintuck, war erbout the ign'rantest human mortals G.o.d ever suffered ter live--but even us knows erbout Alexander. Fust place he hain't no man at all. He's a gal--leastwise, Alexander was borned female but she's done lived a plum he-life, ever since."

"A woman--but the name----"

"Oh, pshaw! Thar hain't nuthin' jedgmatic in a name. Old man McGivins he jest disgusts gals and so he up and named his fust born Alexander an' he's done reared her accordin'."

Brent arched his brows as his informant continued, gathering headway in the interest of his narrative. "Old man McGivins he's done read a lavish heap of books an' he talks a pa.s.sel of printed wisdom. He 'lowed thet Alexander wa'nt no common man's name but thet hit signified a h.e.l.l-bustin' survigrous feller. By his tellin', ther fust Alexander whaled blazes outen all creation an' then sot down an' cried like a baby because ther job he'd done went an' petered out on him. Ter me, thet norration savers right strong of a d.a.m.n lie."

Brent nodded as he smilingly replied, "I've read of that first Alexander, but he's been dead a good many centuries."

"Long enough ter leave him lay an' ferget about him, I reckon," drily observed the parson. "Anyhow atter a spell Old Man McGivins had another bornin' at his dwellin-house an' thet time hit proved out to be a boy. His woman sought ter rechristen ther gal Lizzie or Lake Erie or somethin' else befittin petticoats. She 'lowed thet no G.o.dly man wouldn't hardly seek a woman in wedlock, ner crave fer her to be ther mother of his children with a name hung on her like Alexander Macedonia McGivins."

Brent's eye twinkled as he watched the unbending gravity of the other's face and since comment seemed expected he conceded, "There seems to be a germ of reason in that."

"Then ther boy commenced growin' up, lazy-like an' shiftless,"

enlightened the parson. "Ther old man 'lowed thet hit wouldn't hardly be no fallacy ter name him Lizzie or Lake Erie, but he swore on a hull stack of Bibles thet he aimed ter make a man of ther gal."

Suddenly the speaker broke off and his brow clouded. Following the apprehensive direction of the frowning eyes as one might follow a dotted line the man from the city saw a young mountaineer surrept.i.tiously tilting a flask to his lips in the lee of a huge boulder. Palpably the drinker believed himself screened from view, and when he had wiped the neck of the flask with the palm of his hand and stowed it away again in his breast pocket he looked furtively about him--and that furtiveness was unusual enough to elicit surprise in this land where men drank openly and made moonshine whiskey and even gave it to their small children.

"Since ther time of corn drappin' an' kiverin'," said the Parson, slowly, "Bud Sellers hain't teched a dram afore now. Hit don't pleasure me none ter see him startin' in afresh."

"He's been working hard," suggested the timber buyer tolerantly. "I've watched him and he never seems to tire. Maybe he felt the need of a stimulant."

But Acup growled. "When Bud leaves licker alone thar hain't no better boy nowhars. When he follers drinking he gits p'izen mean right down to ther marrer in his insidest bone. Folks calls him ther mad-dog then. Ef these men finds out he's drinkin', they'll quit work an'

scatter like pa'tridges does when they sees a hawk flutterin' overhead."

The loose-jointed giant turned on his heel and left Brent standing alone. Snow after snow had fallen this winter and frozen tight, heaped high by blizzard after blizzard until all the legendary "old fashioned winters" had been outdone and put to shame. Then without warning had come some warm breath across the peaks bringing January rains on the heels of zero frigidity and thaws of unprecedented swiftness. While the "spring-tide" was to have been an agency of safe delivery for the felled timber this premature flood threatened to be a lawless one of devastation. Brent had rushed up here from the city driven by anxiety as to the logs he had contracted to buy--logs which the oncoming flood threatened to ravish into scattered and racing drift. He had found old man McGivins toiling without sleep or rest; racing against the gathering cohorts of a Nature turned vandal, and into the fight and stress he had thrown himself and all his energies.

That there was even the slimmest of chances to save the poplar, was a fact due to a peculiar conformation of the levels there, and to exceptional circ.u.mstances.

"Gin'rally we just rolls ther logs down hill when we cuts 'em an' lets 'em lay thar whar they falls in ther creek beds," McGivins had explained. "Afore ther spring tide comes on with ther thaws an' rains, we builds a splash dam back of 'em an' when we're ready we blows her out an' lets 'em float on down ter ther nighest boom fer raftin'. Ef a flood like this comes on they gits scattered, an' we jest kisses 'em good-bye. Thet's happenin' right now all along these numerous small creeks."

But McGivins had cut his timber near a river that could float not only loose logs but rafts, and in a small lake-like basin hemmed in by cliffs and separated by a gorge from the river he had gathered them and bound them into three large rafts. Only such a stage as came with the "tide" would convert the gorge into a water-way out, and only then wen the great dam built across it had been dynamited.

Now came this flood, infinitely more powerful than the ordinary rise of spring. The dam was threatened and must be strengthened and raised higher. If it gave way, he too must "kiss his logs good-bye."

As the city man speculated on the odds against him Old Man McGivins himself materialized at his elbow. His lips were tight-set and his brow was furrowed. For him the situation savored of impending tragedy.

These trees had been reluctantly felled from a virgin tract of forest heretofore unscarred by the axe, and they had been his long-h.o.a.rded treasure. He had held on to them much as a miser holds to his savings because he loved them. Even when Brent had offered a good price, running well into thousands, he had wrestled with himself. When the axes had rung and the saws whined through the scarlet and golden autumn, it had almost seemed to him that he was executing living and beloved friends. Now an inimical force of Nature threatened to rob him of them and of his remuneration as well. Yet as he stood there, with the sweat and grime of his labor drying on his forehead, his brooding eyes held a patriarchal dignity of uncomplaining courage.

"All these hyar men air my neighbors, Mr. Brent," he said with a manner of instinctive courtesy. "They hain't a-workin' fer wages but jest ter kinderly convenience me--I reckon we're both of us right smart beholden to 'em."

The city man acquiescently nodded his head but he was thinking chiefly of the calm patience and the tireless strenuousity with which McGivins, himself, was battling against calamity.

"They are friends of yours," he answered. "They realize that your loss will be heavy if----" He broke off there and the other went on.

"Hit'll mighty nigh cripple me ef we don't save 'em. I've done held on ter thet timber fer a long spell of years an' I sorrers ter part with hit now. But thar's a right weighty mortgage on my land an' hit's held by a man thet don't squander no love on me at best."

Brent gritted his teeth. He had heretofore known only in the indirectness of theory the sudden capriciousness of mountain weather; storms that burst and cannonade without warning; trickling waters that leap overnight into maddened freshets. Now he was seeing in its blood-raw ferocity the primal combat between man and the elements.

With a troubled brow Parson Acup returned and addressed McGivins.

"Aaron," he said bluntly, "right numerous fellers air threatenin' ter quit us and we kain't spare a single hand."

The old man flinched as if under a blow from a trusted hand. "What fer does they aim ter quit?" he demanded.

"Bud Sellers has started in drinkin' licker, an' a'ready he's gittin'

malignant. Ther Martin boys an' ther Copelands an' others beside 'em, 'lows thet they ain't seekin' no heedless trouble and hit's more heedful-like fer 'em ter go on home an' avoid an affray. Ef they stays on hit's right apt to end in blood-lettin'."

McGivins drew himself to a more rigid erectness. "Go back an' tell them boys thet I needs 'em," he ordered. "Tell 'em ef they don't stand by me now, I'm ruint. I'll send Bud away ef thet's all thet's frettin'

'em."

"I wouldn't counsel ye ter cross Bud jest now," advised Acup, but the other laughed under his long beard, a low angry laugh, as he turned on his heel and, with the man from the city following him, started in search of the troublemaker.

Bud was found at last behind the great hump of towering rock. The place, walled in by beetling precipice, was beginning to darken into cloister-dim shadows. Bud's back was turned and he did not hear the footfall of the two men who had come upon him there. He knew that when once he succ.u.mbed to the thirst it meant a parting with reason and a frenzy of violence. But when the first savor of the fiery moonshine stuff had teased his palate and the first warmth had glowed in his stomach it meant surrender to debauch--and already he had gone too far to fight the appet.i.te which was his ruin.

Now he stood with the flask to his lips and his head bent back, but when he had drunk deep he turned and saw the two figures that were silently observing him.

His eyes were already blood-shot and his cheeks reddened. The motions of his lithe body were unsteady. With a shamefaced gesture the young man sought to conceal the flask under his coat, then a fickle change came to his mood. His head bent down low like a bull's and his shoulders hulked in a stiffening defiance.

"Spyin' on me, air ye?" The question rasped savagely from his thickened lips. "Well, d.a.m.n ther pair of ye, spies desarves what they gits! I'm a free man an' I don't suffer no bull-dozin' from n.o.body."

He lurched forward with so threatening an air that Brent stepped a little to the side and instinctively his hand went to the coat pocket where he carried a pistol. But Bud ignored him, focussing his attention upon the mountain man to whom he had come in friendship and service for the stemming of a disaster. He came with a chin out-thrust close to the older and bearded face. Truculence and reckless bravado proclaimed themselves in the pose, as he bulked there. "Wa'al," he snarled, "ye heered me, didn't ye?"

But McGivins had not altered his att.i.tude. He had not given back a stride nor moved his arms. Now he spoke quietly.

"I'm sore grieved to see you comin' ter this pa.s.s, Bud," he said. "We all knows what hit means every time. I'm obleeged ter ye fer what ye've already done--an' I'll ask ye, now, ter go on home afore ye drinks any more whiskey--or starts any ruction amongst my neighbors."

"So thet's. .h.i.t, air hit?" Bud rocked a little on his feet as he stood confronting the steady challenge of Aaron McGivins. "So ye lets a man work slavish fer ye all day, and then starts in faultin' him ef he takes a drink at sun-down. Well d.a.m.n ye, I don't aim ter go nowhars tell I'm ready an' ambitious ter go--does ye hear thet or does I hev ter tell ye again?"

With a very deliberate motion McGivins lifted one arm and pointed it towards the west--that way lay the nearest boundary of his tract.