Part 12 (1/2)

A slow smoke still wreathed upward from the charred ruins of the court-house. Gossiping groups stood here and there, mostly the jeans-clad mountaineers, but there were a few who wore ”store clothes,”

being lawyers from more sophisticated regions of the circuit. Court had been in session the previous day. The jury, serving in a criminal case--still strictly segregated, and in charge of an officer--were walking about wearily in double file, waiting with what patience they might their formal discharge.

The sheriff's dog, a great yellow cur, trotted in the rear. When the officer was first elected, this animal, observing the change in his master's habits, deduced his own conclusions. He seemed to think the court-house belonged to the sheriff, and thence-forward guarded the door with snaps and growls; being a formidable brute, his idiosyncrasies invested the getting into and getting out of law with abnormal difficulties. Now, as he followed the disconsolate jury, he bore the vigilant mien with which he formerly drove up the cows, and if a juror loitered or stepped aside from the path, the dog made a slow detour as if to round him in, and the melancholy cortege wandered on as before.

More than one looked wistfully at the group on the crag, for it was distinguished by that sprightly interest which scandal excites so readily.

”Ter my way of thinkin',” drawled Sam Peters, swinging his feet over the giddy depths of the valley, ”Tobe ain't sech ez oughter be set over the county ez a ranger, noways. 'Pears not ter me, an' I hev been keepin' my eye on him mighty sharp.”

A shadow fell among the group, and a man sat down on a bowlder hard by.

He, too, had just arrived, being lured to the town by the news of the fire. His slide had been left at the verge of the clearing, and one of the oxen had already lain down; the other, although hampered by the yoke thus diagonally displaced, stood meditatively gazing at the distant blue mountains. Their master nodded a slow, grave salutation to the group, produced a plug of tobacco, gnawed a fragment from it, and restored it to his pocket. He had a pensive face, with an expression which in a man of wider culture we should discriminate as denoting sensibility. He had long yellow hair that hung down to his shoulders, and a tangled yellow beard. There was something at once wistful and searching in his gray eyes, dull enough, too, at times. He lifted them heavily, and they had a drooping lid and lash. There seemed an odd incongruity between this sensitive, weary face and his stalwart physique. He was tall and well proportioned. A leather belt girded his brown jeans coat. His great cowhide boots were drawn to the knee over his trousers. His pose, as he leaned on the rock, had a muscular picturesqueness.

”Who be ye a-talkin' about?” he drawled.

Peters relished his opportunity. He laughed in a distorted fas.h.i.+on, his pipe-stem held between his teeth.

”_You-uns_ ain't wantin' ter swop lies 'bout sech ez him, Luke! We war a-talkin' 'bout Tobe Gryce.”

The color flared into the new-comer's face. A sudden animation fired his eye.

”Tobe Gryce air jes the man I'm always wantin' ter hear a word about.

Jes perceed with yer rat-killin'. I'm with ye.” And Luke Todd placed his elbows on his knees and leaned forward with an air of attention.

Peters looked at him, hardly comprehending this ebullition. It was not what he had expected to elicit. No one laughed. His fleer was wide of the mark.

”Wa'al”--he made another effort--”Tobe, we war jes sayin', ain't fitten fur ter be ranger o' the county. He be ez peart in gittin' ter own other folkses' stray cattle ez he war in courtin' other folkses' sweetheart, an', ef the truth mus' be knowed, in marryin' her.” He suddenly twisted round, in some danger of falling from his perch. ”I want ter ax one o'

them thar big-headed lawyers a question on a p'int o' law,” he broke off, abruptly.

”What be Tobe Gryce a-doin' of now?” asked Luke Todd, with eager interest in the subject.

”Wa'al,” resumed Peters, nowise loath to return to the gossip, ”Tobe, ye see, air the ranger o' this hyar county, an' by law all the stray horses ez air tuk up by folks hev ter be reported ter him, an' appraised by two householders, an' swore to afore the magistrate an' be advertised by the ranger, an' ef they ain't claimed 'fore twelve months, the taker-up kin pay into the county treasury one-haffen the apprais.e.m.e.nt an' hev the critter fur his'n. An' the owner can't prove it away arter that.”

”Thanky,” said Luke Todd, dryly. ”S'pose ye teach yer gran'mammy ter suck aigs. I knowed all that afore.”

Peters was abashed, and with some difficulty collected himself.

”An' I knowed ye knowed it, Luke,” he hastily conceded. ”But hyar be what I'm a-lookin' at--the law 'ain't got no pervision fur a stray horse ez kem of a dark night, 'thout n.o.body's percuremint, ter the ranger's own house. Now, the p'int o' law ez I wanted ter ax the lawyers 'bout air this--kin the ranger be the ranger an' the taker-up too?”

He turned his eyes upon the great landscape lying beneath, flooded with the chill matutinal suns.h.i.+ne, and flecked here and there with the elusive shadows of the fleecy drifting clouds. Far away the long horizontal lines of the wooded spurs, converging on either side of the valley and rising one behind the other, wore a subdued azure, all unlike the burning blue of summer, and lay along the calm, pa.s.sionless sky, that itself was of a dim, repressed tone. On the slopes nearer, the leafless boughs, ma.s.sed together, had purplish-garnet depths of color wherever the suns.h.i.+ne struck aslant, and showed richly against the faintly tinted horizon. Here and there among the boldly jutting gray crags hung an evergreen-vine, and from a gorge on the opposite mountain gleamed a continuous flash, like the waving of a silver plume, where a cataract sprang down the rocks. In the depths of the valley, a field in which crab-gra.s.s had grown in the place of the harvested wheat showed a tiny square of palest yellow, and beside it a red clay road, running over a hill, was visible. Above all a hawk was flying.

”Afore the winter fairly set in las' year,” Peters resumed, presently, ”a stray kem ter Tobe's house. He 'lowed ter me ez he fund her a-standin' by the fodder-stack a-pullin' off'n it. An' he 'quired round, an' he never hearn o' no owner. I reckon he never axed outside o'

Lonesome,” he added, cynically. He puffed industriously at his pipe for a few moments; then continued: ”Wa'al, he 'lowed he couldn't feed the critter fur fun. An' he couldn't work her till she war appraised an'

sech, that bein' agin the law fur strays. So he jes ondertook ter be ranger an' taker-up too--the bangedest consarn in the kentry! Ef the leetle mare hed been wall-eyed, or lame, or ennything, he wouldn't hev wanted ter be ranger an' taker-up too. But she air the peartest little beastis--she war jes bridle-wise when she fust kem--young an' spry!”

Luke Todd was about to ask a question, but Peters, disregarding him, persisted:

”Wa'al, Tobe tuk up the beastis, an' I reckon he reported her ter hisself, bein' the ranger--the critter makes me laff--an' he hed that thar old haffen-blind uncle o' his'n an' Perkins Bates, ez be never sober, ter appraise the vally o' the mare, an' I s'pose he delivered thar certificate ter hisself, an' I reckon he tuk oath that she kem 'thout his procure_mint_ ter his place, in the presence o' the ranger.”

”I reckon thar ain't no law agin the ranger's bein' a ranger an' a taker-up too,” put in one of the bystanders. ”'Tain't like a sher'ff's buyin' at his own sale. An' he hed ter pay haffen her vally into the treasury o' the county arter twelve months, ef the owner never proved her away.”