Part 22 (1/2)

Suddenly the little man slapped his knee and bit his tongue. He stood up and determinedly filled his pipe, rolling his eye over the bowl to the doorway. Keeping his eyes fixed he slid dangerously to the foot of the hillock and walked down the waggon ruts. A moment later he pa.s.sed from the noise of the suns.h.i.+ne to the gloom of the woods.

The green portals closed, shutting out live things. The little man trudged on alone.

Tall tangled gra.s.s grew in the roadway, and the trees bended obstructing branches. The little man followed on over pine-clothed ridges and down through water-soaked swales. His shoes were cut by rocks of the mountains, and he sank ankle-deep in mud and moss of swamps. A curve just ahead lured him miles.

Finally, as he wended the side of a ridge, the road disappeared from beneath his feet. He battled with hordes of ignorant bushes on his way to knolls and solitary trees which invited him. Once he came to a tall, bearded pine. He climbed it, and perceived in the distance a peak. He uttered an e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n and fell out.

He scrambled to his feet, and said: ”That's Jones's Mountain, I guess.

It's about six miles from our camp as the crow flies.”

He changed his course away from the mountain, and attacked the bushes again. He climbed over great logs, golden-brown in decay, and was opposed by thickets of dark-green laurel. A brook slid through the ooze of a swamp; cedars and hemlocks hung their sprays to the edges of pools.

The little man began to stagger in his walk. After a time he stopped and mopped his brow.

”My legs are about to shrivel up and drop off,” he said.... ”Still if I keep on in this direction, I am safe to strike the Lumberland Pike before sundown.”

He dived at a clump of tag-alders, and emerging, confronted Jones's Mountain.

The wanderer sat down in a clear place and fixed his eyes on the summit.

His mouth opened widely, and his body swayed at times. The little man and the peak stared in silence.

A lazy lake lay asleep near the foot of the mountain. In its bed of water-gra.s.s some frogs leered at the sky and crooned. The sun sank in red silence, and the shadows of the pines grew formidable. The expectant hush of evening, as if some thing were going to sing a hymn, fell upon the peak and the little man.

A leaping pickerel off on the water created a silver circle that was lost in black shadows. The little man shook himself and started to his feet, crying: ”For the love of Mike, there's eyes in this mountain! I feel 'em! Eyes!”

He fell on his face.

When he looked again, he immediately sprang erect and ran.

”It's comin'!”

The mountain was approaching.

The little man scurried, sobbing through the thick growth. He felt his brain turning to water. He vanquished brambles with mighty bounds.

But after a time he came again to the foot of the mountain.

”G.o.d!” he howled, ”it's been follerin' me.” He grovelled.

Casting his eyes upward made circles swirl in his blood.

”I'm shackled I guess,” he moaned. As he felt the heel of the mountain about crush his head, he sprang again to his feet. He grasped a handful of small stones and hurled them.

”d.a.m.n you,” he shrieked loudly. The pebbles rang against the face of the mountain.

The little man then made an attack. He climbed with hands and feet wildly. Brambles forced him back and stones slid from beneath his feet.

The peak swayed and tottered, and was ever about to smite with a granite arm. The summit was a blaze of red wrath.