Chapter XXIII: The 'Possum-Hunt

Buzzard Mountain, wooded to the top, extends for two miles north and south. Its long, gradual slope is like the body of a dormant animal, rising from the sunken haunches over a long and flattened back, and falling again to the nose dropped sleepily between the outstretched paws.

The meet for the 'possum-hunt was at its northern end, on the outskirts of the settlement. The run was to be along the crest towards the south, bringing the hunters out at the end of the ridge nearest their homes.

The night was lighted by a youthful moon, not brilliant enough to dim the lustre of the stars, shining clear through the air. It was cool with the first touch of autumn; so cool as to invite to exercise, yet so warm as to make it a pleasure to be in the open.

The hunters were in high spirits. The men from the hamlet about the post-office,--'Gene Frady and Alf Lance, Mitchell Robertson, the blacksmith, Doc Pinner, the carpenter, and a half-dozen more, with a boy to drive back the horses, were piled into a wagon. There were much pushing and scrambling for places, and many ejaculations of discomfort.

"Git off mah feet, 'Gene."

"Hang 'em outside, man. Ah gotter sit somewheres."

"Ouch! What fool put rye-straw in here?"

"Powerful penetratin', ain' hit?"

"Now, look here, that dog's gotter run with the rest. They ain' no room for him in this wagon."

"Cain' you-all make them horses o' yo's git along a little mo' lively, Alf? Mr. Baron'll 'a' cleaned the mountain o' 'possums befo' we git there."

"How you-all think they's goin' ter hurry with so many fellers ter haul? Some o' you boys gotter light 'n walk up this hill in a minute, so ye better enjoy drivin' while ye can."

At a deserted cabin on the road that ran through the northern gap they found Bob Morgan and John Wendell, who had come in a buggy, and the Baron on his mule. A small negro was to take the vehicle, with von Rittenheim's animal tied behind, around the base of the mountain to the German's house, there to await the end of the hunt. The boy's brown face was twitching with excitement, as the men began to throw their coats into the wagon, and to light their torches, split from the heart of the yellow pine.

"Oh, Lor', Missa Bob," he cried, rubbing one bare foot up and down the other leg in ecstasy, "lemme go, too. Ah'll never ast ye nothin' again, Ah swear Ah won't. _Please_, Missa Bob."

"Can't do it, Scipio," said Bob, kindly. "You're the only man we've got to look after these creatures. Here, don't let your eyes pop out of your head. I tell you, you drive to Mr. Baron's and tie the horse and the mule,--tie 'em strong, mind,--and then you can come up the other side and meet us."

Scipio's mournful eyes followed the disappearing forms with an appreciation of their purpose rather than of the picturesqueness of their appearance. The flaming lights grew silent as the distance became too great for his ear to catch their sizzling. They danced hither and yon,--now scattered, now flashing in a bunch. He followed the course of a very bright one as it appeared and vanished, but went always on and up.

"Ah 'low dat's Missa Bob's," said the loyal little soul. "He sho' would have de bigges'."

On the hill-side the men opened their line to cover a wide stretch of the mountain, and plunged upward through the scrub of pines and oaks. There was much running about of the dogs, and desultory barking, corrected by spicy admonitions from their masters, until the ascent's steepness forced silence upon them by the weapon of difficult breathing.

Once 'Gene Frady tripped on a root and fell headlong, pitching his torch into the dry duff a man's length before him. There was a rush to stamp out the incipient fire, the autumn terror of the forests, before any one lent a hand to help the fallen. Robertson went half-way up his leggings in a spring, and stood swearing fiercely, while the rest jeered at him and ordered him to move on before he muddied up a good drinking-place. Bob and Friedrich pushed on on adjoining courses, an occasional cry of "_malerisch_," or "_zauberisch_," showing that von Rittenheim was regarding the scene as well as the sport. On the other side of Bob climbed Wendell, sullenly self-reproachful in the Baron's presence, yet of too exuberant a nature not to be alive to the excitement of the chase.

Of a sudden a hound gave voice,--the bay that makes hunters of us all. The other dogs rushed to his standard, yelping, barking, galloping from all directions across their masters' paths, until the forest seemed suddenly alive with them. One after another found, and added his note to the general cry that trailed off into the distance. The men who had started to follow paused, and the rest drew together.

"Rabbit," suggested Bob, disgustedly, and the others nodded, and began to whistle for their retainers.

Singly they returned, with swinging tongue and pendant ears, and a disposition to sit down and contemplate the scenery. Then once more came a cry, the steady bay of a dog at stand. His companions instantly forgot their fatigue, pricked up their ears, pulled in their tongues, and started towards the herald, with all the huntsmen in pursuit.

Gathered about a veteran oak, whose blasted top betrayed it the lightning's victim, were grouped the dogs, each one shoving to better his place in the bunch, each with tuneful throat and uplifted tail. Occasionally one from the outskirts would rush around the crowd of his fellows and try to push in from the other side of the ring. The ones nearest the tree snuffed at a hole in the trunk between the roots, and dug fiercely with their forepaws.

"Holler, ain' hit?"

"Yes. He's went in that-a-way."

"Don' look like hit's holler up fur."

"No. Reckon we c'n chop him out."

Lance pushed among the dogs, kicking and cuffing them out of his way, and sounded the tree with the back of a hatchet.

"Ah 'low hit's gone all the way up," he cried.

"Well, chop hit 'n fin' out!" returned his friends, impatiently.

He began cutting a square and soon broke through the outer shell.

"Gimme a glove, one o' you fellers," he cried. "Ah ain' aimin' to have a finger chewed off this time."

Some one tossed him the desired protection. He put it on and thrust his arm into the hole, while the crowd pushed up on to the dogs, and they yelped excitedly.

"Ah tol' ye so. Hit's holler clear up's fur's Ah c'n reach."

"All right. We'll smoke him out, then. Git out o' here, you dogs, an' give us a chance at this fireplace."

The hole at the base of the tree was quickly enlarged enough to push in a smudge, and the opening which Lance had made above was closed with moss and green leaves.

"Hi, there she comes," cried some one, enthusiastically, as the thick white smoke made its way out of the broken top. "The varmint won' stan' that long."

Soon, indeed, amid a shower of bark and burning punk, a black and white ball scrambled into the air and dropped from the ragged splinters that offered no sufficient hold for its claws.

As swift as sight, 'Gene Frady dashed close to the bole and caught the falling creature in his hands. High above the leaping dogs he held it, while they snarled, defrauded of their prey.

"Quick, that crocus sack," he called. "Ah promised the kids to bring one home. Give him a switch, Mitchell."

The 'possum, rousing from the semi-stupor into which the smoke and the shock of his fall had thrown him, was beginning to struggle violently. Robertson broke a finger-thick stick and thrust it between the snapping jaws, that clamped upon it fiercely. The rat-like tail wound about the other end of the rod, and the bag was drawn over him while he clung to his fancied means of safety. Frady flung his burden high on his back to secure it from the dogs, and the others put out the fire in the tree, and again fell into open order to beat the woods.

The next 'possum which they discovered, more fortunate than his brother, who had been sighted on the ground where locomotion is slow and awkward for his kind, was aloft in the branches when the dogs spied him. He clambered dexterously about with his hand-like extremities, aiding his progress with his prehensile tail; but he had not calculated upon the added heaviness which his autumn diet had given him. He ventured upon a sapling that bent beneath him. Wendell added his weight to bear it to the ground, and the dogs leaped at their victim and tore him into bits.

Both men and dogs were tired now, and pushed on with less enthusiasm. The dogs, indeed, who had covered many more miles in their wild dashings than had their masters, were not above sitting down occasionally and lapping a memento of the last 'possum's sharp teeth, or passing a rueful paw over a slit and bleeding ear.

As they were approaching the southern end of the mountain, and realized that the edge of the excitement was blunted, the men walked nearer to each other, and talked on indifferent themes as they pushed through the brush just below the top of the ridge. One after another fell silent, perhaps through fatigue; possibly impressed with the beauty of the night.

Through the openings in the tree-tops the stars shone with steady clearness, doing their best to replace the light of the little moon which had gone to rest early, like most young things. Under the forest cover the starlight did not penetrate, and the darkness was illumined by the yellow flare of the torches. The fall of feet on crackling twigs, and the slapping of smitten shrub-leaves broke the thick silence that falls on the earth with night.

To Pink Pressley, crouching at the entrance of his cave, the sound of approaching steps was a threat. He had put out his fire as soon as he heard the dogs on the other end of the ridge, and for two hours he had followed the course of the hunt by their barking and the cries of the men. He guessed it to be what it was,--a 'possum-hunt,--yet suspicion born of guilt hinted always at such a hunt as an excuse for a raid upon his still.

On the other hand, the party was coming from the north, and might be made up of men from Asheville. In that case, since, perhaps, they did not know the mountain, it was quite possible that they would turn back before they reached his hiding-place. At any rate, he determined to stay where he was, and run the risk of detection. If it should prove to be a raid, he was not averse to exchanging shots with the revenue men. The thought of it filled him with a fierce joy. Three times they had destroyed his whole plant, and this time he meant to fight for it.

He took down the boards that filled the cave's mouth, and pulled the bushes more carefully before it. The dogs would find and reveal him as quickly with one arrangement as the other, and he had no desire to undergo a siege shut up in that hole, when he might burst out and defend himself with some enjoyment.

Screened by his net-work of bushes, he listened keenly to every sound. A misgiving seized him that Bud had betrayed him, and he cursed him in a whisper. Yarebrough had told him in the afternoon that his baby was ill, and that he could not leave Melissa alone with her that night; but he had confessed at the same time, with his usual lack of reticence, that the Baron had "been a-talkin'" to him, and Pink suspected that the baby's illness was a fabrication to excuse his non-appearance at the still, and possibly his treachery. Pressley's judgment of his partner's honor was based on his own, and he felt in his pocket to make sure of the safety there of a letter whose crackle sounded pleasantly in his ears.

"'Twon' do to give him too much rope," he muttered.

Nearer came the soft scampering of dogs and the trampling of men, and the torches' glow warming the unlighted forest. Pressley hoped that they might pass along the mountain's side below him, or on top of the ledge that roofed his cavern, but there always was danger from the dogs. Even as he thought it, one padded along the shelf of rock that lay like a step before his door, and stopped short with a growl. He was so near that Pink struck him with the butt of his revolver, and sent him off with a paw uplifted in pain.

The man leaned out from his shelter and stared towards the right, whence the lights were coming. Then he looked straight ahead for a moment, down the mountain, under the leafy tops, and wished it were all over and he knew how it had come out.

When he looked back the foremost men were in view, a group of three or four, with their dogs following at heel soberly enough. Their torches flung grotesque shadows on the trees, and distorted their figures into uncouth semblances. He could not recognize them, yet they seemed familiar. Those two in front--was it----? Yes, by God! Like a fiend he sprang from his lair and rushed at von Rittenheim, as if from the very bowels of the rock. His face glared, malignant, in the unsteady light.

"So you did squeal on me, you damned German!" he yelled. "Take that and that and that." He fired three times full at von Rittenheim's face. With the third shot another rang in unison, and Pressley fell, twisted and snarling, on the stone before his still.

Bob Morgan's hand, holding the smoking pistol, fell to his side.

"Are you all right, von Rittenheim?" he asked; then added, weakly, "I reckon you'll have to carry me down, boys. He's touched me." And he staggered into Friedrich's arms.

He had been walking a stride higher up the hill-side than von Rittenheim, and, flinging himself from his greater elevation between the German and his assailant, he had received the bullets meant for Friedrich's head lower in his own body.