"Ef Mr. Thornton takes my counsel," went on the deformed leader, "he'll bid ye go back thar an' tell them folks ye comes from thet ef they'll admit him ter bail, an' pledge him a fa'r day in co'te, he'll come back thar without no conflict when ye sends fer him. But ye've got ter hev 'em agree ter let him stay over hyar till ther co'te sets ter try him.

Es fer his bond ye kin put hit at any figger ye likes so long es thar's land enough an' money enough amongst us ter kiver hit."

The Virginia sheriff turned to the Kentucky officer.

"Will ye arrest this man an' hold him safe till I gits my order?" he demanded, and the Kentuckian in turn inquired of Parish, "Will ye agree to hold yoreself subject ter prompt response?"

Thornton nodded and casually the local officer replied:

"All right, Mr. Beaver. Ye kin ride on home now whenever ye gits ready.

I've got this prisoner in a custody thet satisfies me right now."

CHAPTER XXV

Had those enterprising spirits who had undertaken to organize a vigilance committee, modelled upon the old Ku Klux, been avowedly outlaws, banded together only for the abuse of power, their efforts would have died of inanition. The sort of lawlessness that has given the Appalachian mountaineer his wild name is one that the outer world understands as little as the hillsman understands the outer world, and the appeal which the organization made was a warped and distorted sense of justice, none the less sincere.

So now though the organizers of the new body were scheming rascals, actuated by the basest and meanest motives, the tissue and brawn of their recruiting was built up from the adventure-love of youth or the grim and honest insurgency of maturer age.

As yet the membership was small and it met in shifting places of rendezvous, with weird rites of oath-bound secrecy. To-night it was gathered around a campfire in a gorge between towering cliffs to which access was gained by a single and narrow gut of alley-way which was sentinel-guarded.

The men were notably bi-partisan in make-up, for Sim Squires of the Harper faction sat on the same short log with young Pete Doane of the Rowletts, and so it ran with the rest.

"Couldn't ye contrive ter persuade Bas Rowlett ter jine us, Pete?"

inquired one of the two men who had swaggered with Sam Opd.y.k.e up the court-house aisle, and gone out in crestfallen limpness. "Hit looks like he'd ought ter hold with us. He war ent.i.tled ter leadership an'

they cast him over."

Pete shook his head and answered with the importance of an envoy:

"Bas, he's fer us, body an' soul, an' he aims ter succour us every way he kin but he figgers he kin compa.s.s. .h.i.t best fashion by _seemin'_ ter stand solid with ther old leaders."

Sim Squires said nothing but he spat contemptuously when the name of Bas Rowlett was mentioned.

"Ther fust task that lays ahead of us," declared the voice of Rick Joyce who seemed to be the presiding officer of the meeting, "is ter see that Sam Opd.y.k.e comes cl'ar in cote. When ther Doanes met in council, Sam war thar amongst 'em an' no man denied he hed as good a right ter be harkened to as anybody else. But they rid over him rough-shod. A few men tuck ther bit in their teeth and flaunted ther balance of us. Now we aims ter flaunt _them_ some."

"How air we goin' ter compa.s.s. .h.i.t?" came a query, and the answer was prompt.

"When ther panel's drawed ter try Sam we've got ter see that every man on the jury gits secretly admonished thet atter he finishes up thar, he's still got ter answer ter _us_--an' meantime we've got ter handle some two-three offenders in sich a fashion thet men will fear ter disobey us."

So working on that premise of injustices to be righted, malcontents from the minorities of both factions were induced with fantastic ceremonials of initiation into the membership of the secret brotherhood. And though they were building an engine of menacing power and outlawry, it is probable that more than half of them were men who might have turned on their leaders, as a wolf pack turns on a fallen member, had they known the deceit and the private grudge-serving with which the unseen hand of Bas Rowlett was guiding them.

The dreamy languor of autumn gave way to the gusty melancholy of winds that brought down the leaves from the walnut tree until it stretched out branches disconsolate and reeking with only the more tenacious foliage left clinging. Then Dorothy Thornton felt that the sand was running low in the hour gla.s.s of respited happiness and that the day when her husband must face his issue was terribly near.

Indian summer is a false glory and a brief one, with alluring beauty like the music of a swan-song, and it had been in an Indian summer of present possession that she had lived from day to day, refusing to contemplate the future--but that could not go on.

The old journal which had fired her imagination as a door to a new life had lain through these days neglected--but they had been days of nearer and more urgent realities and, after all, the diary had seemed to belong to a world of dreams.

One of these fall afternoons when the skies were lowering and Parish was out in the woods with Sim Squires she remembered it with a pang of guilty neglect such as one might feel for an ill-used friend, and went to the attic to take it out of its hiding and renew her acquaintance.

But when she opened the old horsehide trunk it was not there and panic straightway seized her.

If the yellowed doc.u.ment were lost, she felt that a guardian spirit had removed its talisman from the house, and since she was a practical soul, she remembered, too, that the note-release bearing Bas Rowlett's signature had been folded between its pages! With her present understanding of Bas that thought made her heart miss its beat.

Dorothy was almost sure she had replaced it in the trunk after reading it the last time, yet she was not quite certain, and when Parish came back she was waiting for him with anxiety-br.i.m.m.i.n.g eyes. She told him with alarm in her face of the missing diary and of the receipt which had been enclosed and he looked grave, but rather with the air of sentimental than material interest.

"Thet old diary-book was in ther chist not very long ago," he declared.

"I went up thar an' got ther receipt out when I fared over ter Sam Opd.y.k.e's arraignin'. I tuck hit ter ther co'te-house an' put hit ter record thet day--ther receipt, I means."

"How did ye git inter ther chist without my unlockin' hit?" she inquired with a relief much more material than sentimental, and he laughed.

"Thet old bra.s.s key," he responded, "war in yore key basket--an ye warn't in ther house right then, so I jest holped myself."

That bra.s.s key and that ancient record became the theme of conversation for two other people about the same time.

In the abandoned cabin which had come to be the headquarters of Bas Rowlett in receiving reports from, and giving instructions to, his secret agents, he had a talk with his spy Sim Squires, who had come by appointment to meet him there. In the sick yellow of the lantern light the lieutenant had drawn from his pocket and handed to his chief the sheaf of paper roughly bound in home-made covers of cloth which he had been commissioned to abstract from its hiding place.

"Hit's done tuck ye everlastin'ly ter git yore hands on this thing,"

commented Rowlett, sourly, as he held it, still unopened, before him.

"But seems like ye've done got holt of hit at last."

"Hit warn't no facile matter ter do," the agent defended himself as his face clouded resentfully. "Ef I let folks suspicion me I wouldn't be no manner of use ter ye in thet house."

"How did ye compa.s.s. .h.i.t finally?"

"Thornton's woman always kep' hit in the old hoss-hair chist in ther attic an' she always kep' ther chist locked up tight as beeswax." Sim paused and grinned as he added, "But woman-fashion--she sometimes fergot ter lock up ther key."

Rowlett was running through the pages whose ancient script was as meaningless to him as might have been a papyrus roll taken from the crypts of a pyramid.

"Old Caleb," he mused, "named hit ter me thet he'd done put thet paper I wanted betwext ther leaves old this old book inside ther chist."

He ran through the yellow pages time after time and finally shook them violently--without result. His face went blank, then anxious, and after that with a profane outcry of anger he flung the thing to the floor and wheeled with a livid face on Sim Squires.

"Hit hain't thar!" he bellowed, and as his pa.s.sion of fury and disappointment mounted, his eyes spurted jets of fury and suspicion.

"Afore G.o.d," he burst out with eruptive volleys of abuse, "I halfway suspicions ye're holdin' thet paper yore own self ter barter an' trade on when ye gits ther chanst ... an' ef ye be, mebbe ye've got thet other doc.u.ment, too, thet ye pretends ye hain't nuver seed thar--ther one in ther sealed envellup!"

He broke off suddenly, choked with his wrath and panting crazily.

Suppose this hireling who had once or twice shown a rebellious disposition held his own signed confession! Suppose he had even read it!

Bas had never suspected the real course which Parish Thornton had taken to safeguard that other paper and he had not understood why Sim had been unable to locate it and abstract it from the house. Thornton had, in fact, turned it over to the safekeeping of Jase Burrell, who was to hold it, in ignorance of its contents, and only to produce it under certain given conditions. Now Bas stood glaring at Sim Squires with eyes that burned like madness out of a face white and pa.s.sion distorted, and Sim gave back a step, cringing before the man whose ungoverned fury he feared.

But after an unbridled moment Bas realized that he was acting the muddle-headed fool in revealing his fear to a subordinate, his hold over whom depended on an unbroken pose of mastery and self-confidence.

He drew back his shoulders and laughed shamefacedly.

"I jest got red-headed mad fer a minute, Sim," he made placating avowal.

"Of course I knows full well ye done ther best ye could; I reckon I affronted ye with them words, an' I craves yore pardon."