Chapter III

Serena had slyly given me several opportunities to turn back with her. At last she openly rebelled. “Ef yer goin’ down in them rocks,” she said, “I’m goin’ to make a fire on the ridge an’ set here till ye git back, if ye ever do git back.”

“Stay if you want to,” Len told her, “an’ keep Ross to he’p ye pick up brush. Ef we roust that b’ar there’d best be nobody round that kain’t hop quick.”

The entire party gave me a look which was a plain request that I keep Serena company. I was half angered. “Come on,” I said, taking the lead along the ridge. “I hope you’ll enjoy yourself, Serena.”

They stood dubiously, then came on with a shout.

“Yer like my first wife,” said Snead, striding alongside of me. “Nothin’ could head her. You’ve heard ’bout the man that had had three wives an’ when he prayed he would say: ‘God bless Patch, an’ Piece-patch, but dern ol’ Tear-all.’ Now I say it back’ards. My first un wuz Tear-all, an’ I’d ruther have her back than any of ’em. There wuzn’t any government them days. Ever’ feller had his own still ef he wanted one, an’ tended to his own business. Governments hadn’t come inter fashion. I’d say to my wife, ‘Serry, I’d like to cut up fer a week an’ lay drunk,’ an’ she’d say: ‘Go it, Ag, I’ll ’tend to the crap.’ An’ when I got through I’d let her have her turn ef she wanted it, and she generally did. When she wuz dyin’ she says ‘Ag, you’ve been square. You’ve come as you wanted an’ gone as you wanted, an’ so’ve I, bless Jesus.’ ‘Yes, Serry,’ I says, ‘you’ve never been tied to the meat-skillet or wash-pot.’ She laffed then an’ says: ‘I reckon you knowed that string would ’a’ broke anyhow, Ag.’ When she wuz dead I wuz fool enough to think my luck wouldn’t turn, an’ I married agin in about six weeks. Lord, Lord, she cleaned an’ she cooked an’ she mended till I begged her to let up an’ go huntin’ with me. I wuz so lonesome I purty near cried, an’ all she done wuz to git down on her marr’s an’ pray fer my soul. ‘O Lord,’ she says, ‘I’ll take keer o’ his pore neglected body ef you’ll jest save his soul.’ Well, I set in then an’ made her glad to git out. I set down an’ cussed her steady fer two days. She was ready to go the first day, but said she couldn’t till she got ever’thing done. She left my clothes all fixed an’ the house like pie, an’ enough cooked to keep me fer a week, an’ me cussin’ her in a solid streak. She had the grit, but it wuz turned the wrong way fer me. It gives me the all-gonest, lonesome feeling now to think of how she worked an’ worked, an’ all I wanted wuz company. ’Twa’n’t long till she married Ham Copp an’ I reckon he suited her, fer they’re livin’ together yit. It’s her two boys what’s been so near that dead sow back yander, no matter what Len Merlin’s got in his head about it. You kain’t blame the boys, they been brought up so religious. I think a heap of religion, but you got to keep it in bounds er it’s like fire an’ water; it’ll eat ye up. The Copp boys don’t want to be et up, an’ when they gets out they make t’other way, toward the devil. I’m a deacon, an’ pay my dues, but nobody can say I treat my religion too familiar.”

Sam called us to halt, and we paused in a body to look searchingly down over the cliffs where boulders struggled brokenly and trees and saplings scrambled for distorted life.

“He’s down there, boys. I’ll take Bub an’ Bugle, an’ pap to carry the rope, an’ when we find where he is, y’all stretch ’round above us, an’ I’ll go in an’ sic up the dogs. Len, you hold Buck. He’s my dog, an’ I ain’t savin’ him, but bein’ a fox-dog he’s better fer the run, of it comes to runnin’. They’s the masterest ivy thicket ’bout a quarter furder, an’ ef we roust him out he’s liable to make fer it.”

We began the descent, and as I stumbled laboriously downward I thought of Serena sitting by her fire, no doubt singing one of the many ballads which she had learned from her grandmother, and which had probably been sung by a score of generations before her without ever losing its essence in print. I stifled a lyrical regret and clung resolutely to my commercial mood. About thirty yards from the top we scattered and took our stations as Sam directed.

“Ef he breaks out, beat the bushes an’ make a noise like the whole Cher’kee nation full of corn-juice.”

Sam then went farther down, and was beginning to peer cautiously about for the boar when Len cried out: “Hold on! There he is! At the top!”

We looked up and saw the boar above us, monstrously outlined at the top of the ridge. He was huge and black, and my startled eyes magnified him to a fearsome thing. I found out later that he was not of inordinate size. He was poking a nose that seemed several feet long over the verge of a sheer cliff. There were simultaneous howls from the three dogs. The boar’s bristles rose like black Lombardy poplars; and as he flung himself around, his tusks, whiter than the whitest cloud, seemed to circle the heavens. He shot along the ridge, Buck plunging after him.

“Foller him, fellers,” shouted Sam. “I’ll take Bub an’ Bugle an’ make fer the thicket. That’s where he’s goin’.”

Len, Burl, Ted, and Ben began to leap up the mountainside and were soon racing along the ridge trail. I could be of no use in heading off the boar, and after one staggered look upward at the almost vertical slope I decided to follow Sam and granpap. Snead was of the same mind, and we struggled along, swinging from bushes and scrambling over boulders until we arrived at the ivy thicket, which was not ivy at all, but a mass of twisted kalmia from which several great chestnut trees rose in triumph. From somewhere in the tangled interior I could hear Sam’s voice constantly repeating a formula, “Sic ’im, Bub! Sic, sic, sic!”--not loud but in a steady tone, half pleading, half commanding.

Snead crawled into the thicket, and in about ten minutes was back again.

“Sam’s standin’ to his waist in a sink-hole,” he said, “an’ skeered white-eyed. But he ain’t in no danger, the ivy’s so thick round the sink-hole. Bub nor Bugle won’t take holt o’ that thing. They prance all round him, much as the ivy’ll let ’em, an’ keep out o’ the way o’ his tusks, an’ that’s all. We got to have a dog that’ll take holt. Sam says fer me to send Ben down the mountain Pizen Branch way an’ git Jake Sutton’s ol’ dog, Drum. Drum’ll bring him out ef anything will.”

“There’s Buck.”

“Shucks, ef Bub won’t take holt we needn’t wait on Buck.”

“What’s granpap doing?”

“Nothin’ but squattin’ in the bottom o’ that sink-hole wishin’ he’s in prayer-meetin’.”

Snead made his way up to the circle of silent watchers, and Ben was soon flying down the mountain Pizen Branch way. In ten minutes he would be at the foot, but he would have to return slowly by a winding trail, and it would be nearly an hour before Drum could be one of us. In the meantime Sam, with the two dogs, endeavored to keep the boar entertained. Suddenly there was a shriek. A dark body was thrown into the air and fell on top of a thick bunch of “ivy.” “The blood jest sprinkled,” said Sam afterward.

“He’s killed my dog,” shouted Burl from the hillside. But Bugle had received only a skin wound and, scrambling down, crept with viscerated courage to his master. Sam kept on incessantly with the formula, “Sic ’im, Bub! Sic, sic, sic!” and finally called to Len: “Send Buck in here ’less ye want me to git tore up. Bub’s winded.”

From somewhere up the hill Len unloosed Buck, who rushed for the thicket. His entrance was Wagnerian, with a sound that reached the spheres. I had crept forward until I could get black glimpses of the boar as he whirled about, charging at the agile Bub and missing him by a hair’s breadth. With the entrance of Buck he decided to run, and dashed along the “tunnel” that in happier days he had worn to his hiding-place. The dogs tumbled over each other and were slower in getting out. Sam appeared and shouted to the watchers above: “Tear along up there! Ef he gits round the mountain we might as well go home.”

I was at granpap’s heels and going fine, when he fell. He wasn’t seriously hurt, but sat on a rock rubbing his ankle, and I was astounded at the imprecations which he dropped on that “b’ar devil.” It meant more to him than being out of the race. Life had beaten him and gone on, and he knew it. “Reckon they’ll say I done it a-purpose,” he said forlornly.

“Oh, no, they won’t. Sam himself couldn’t have jumped that rock.”

“I’ll set here till the pain gits meller.”

We waited, and the tumult died away and with it my hope of witnessing the capture. After a little we heard a sort of scrambling in the bushes.

“That’s Ag,” said granpap. “He’d git out o’ the run ef he had to break his neck fer it.”

A moment passed and Snead joined us, slightly limping.

“I was jumpin’ a blame rock, an’ it tumbled me off,” he said. “What’s the matter with the ol’ man?”

“Not a durn thing,” said granpap. “I jest ’lowed I’d drap out.”

To show his scorn of subterfuge, he got up and took a few firm steps, then sat down, white with pain but grinning with triumph.

“I’d give my coat an’ shirt to go with the boys,” said Snead. “Ef I hadn’t struck on that sore knee I could ’a’ kept up all right.”

“Reckon I couldn’t,” said granpap. “When I got old I knowed it. Time ain’t slipped nothin’ on me.”

“Well, I ain’t give in yit,” Snead asserted, his yellow-brown eyes shimmering. “These woods’ll be my back yard as long as I’m topside o’ earth, an’ when I’m under it I’ll rattle the dirt ef I can.”

“I’d do a lot myself,” said granpap, “ef I could do it with my tongue.”

Snead’s retort was lost in the returning tumult. The racers were coming back with a rush that made us think of scurrying to refuge. Sam afterward related what had happened.

“When I got out of the thicket,” he said, “I started over the rocks like a jumpin’ spider. Thet ol’ devil went straight like he was goin’ round the mountain, but the dogs kept bearin’ down on his upper side an’ brought him up under a cliff that he hadn’t counted on meetin’. He had to turn on ’em then, but they wouldn’t rush in an’ he wouldn’t rush out. The foam was flyin’ an’ Buck was all bloody. Them tusks had scraped some sense into him, an’ he was standin’ off, yappin’ an’ yowin’. Little ol’ Bub was jumpin’ up an’ down an’ wantin’ like fire to go in, but he knowed better. ‘All we can do,’ I says to Len when the boys come up, ‘is to hold the feller here till Ben comes with ol’ Drum.’ An’ about that time the b’ar decided to come out an’ give them dogs a skeer. You run me in here, he thinks, an’ by golly I’ll run ye out. An’ he lit fer ’em. You never seen dogs so skeert. An’ that’s why we all come back. ’Cause that thing wanted to. He jest rid the saplin’s after them dogs. It was the masterest sight, him goin’ over ever’thing like he had wings in his insides.”

He was “riding the saplings” when we saw him, but we had no time for leisurely observation. We were in the most open strip of the brush and this was the highway for the chase. The dogs seemed divided between fear and shame. They rushed forward with their tongues out, but every few rods would fling their heads back as if to turn on their pursuer; then at sight of him they would give an apparently dying screech and flee forward again.

“Scroonch up to that poplar,” called Snead, “an’ they’ll pass us.” The poplar was an immense one, five feet through at the butt, and was only three or four yards from us; but we had barely time to cross the distance and crowd against the tree before the wild runners flew by. I felt that the earth must be moving; that the whole mountain was a penumbration of that black, vaulting body; the air ought to bleed, torn by those merciless tusks.

They passed out of sight, to our left; and very soon, on our right, we saw Sam. His shoes were ripped open, and his overalls, in strips from his knees down, revealed legs and ankles scratched and bloody. In his hard-set face I scarcely recognized the softly placating features of Sam. As he passed us he was muttering something about old Drum. “Ef ol’ Drum’ll ever git here!” A few minutes later Len and Ted came up.

“Where’s Burl?” asked granpap.

“Back yander, tendin’ that no-’count dog o’ hisn.”

They hurried on, and Len called over his shoulder: “Come on, pap, with yer rope. I hear Ben an’ ol’ Drum. We’ll git him now.”

We listened, and a long, deep, fresh-sounding bay echoed through the woods. Granpap grabbed his rope, dropping his lameness and twenty years of his age. “Smoke yer heels, boys,” he said; and like boys we followed. “He’s bayed agin,” said granpap, as we neared a discord of indescribable sounds. Soon we saw the boar, on top of a lichen-covered boulder, sitting on his haunches, his eyes, like two little black stars, pouring vitriol that ought to have made the forest crumple. The rock itself, with its green, black, and creamy spots and veinlike roots climbing over it, seemed a part of the creature’s body, making a monster as superior to attack as granite, as formidable as if Nature had condensed her forces into his resisting form. The yapping dogs at the base of the rock, and the men with their ceaseless “sic, sic,” were as negligible as squeaking gnats.

Sam was the only one with any apparent dignity. He had yielded to fatigue, and lay motionless on the ground, probably forty feet from me and an equal distance from the group about the rock.

A long musical sound came from old Drum. It was not loud, but of a sure timbre that made the woods quiver. The boar threw up his head and his sides thumped. From my safe distance I fancied a trembling among all the little ruffled scales of the lichens. Suddenly Ben’s young voice called out from somewhere above the rock “Go it, Drum, sic ’im, sic ’im!” and Drum’s huge yellow body vaulted from the slope to the upper edge of the boulder. At that instant the boar shot into the air, curved downward, and struck the ground near the men, scattering them to cover. He rolled for a second, like a knotted ball, then found his four feet properly under him and made straight for Sam.

For a second I felt blinded by a swirling black cloud, then stood clear-sighted in a small but painfully vivid human world. Nature with her everlasting forces retreated and consciousness was trivially reabsorbed in the by-product, humanity. I could even see Coretta, a pale widow, in the country store with a basket of eggs, insisting on an exchange of black percale; and myself distractedly guiding the destinies of her fatherless young.

But Sam was quicker than the boar. With one motion he leaped three feet from the ground, and with arms abnormally long seized the limb of a tree that stretched above him, drawing his body up accordion-fashion and hanging there like a half-opened jackknife. The boar dashed under him and on toward me. I resigned life resentfully. My passion for union with earth was spent. There was nothing but ignominy in being trampled into the ground and muddily tusked.

Drum saved me. I saw him at the boar’s side trying to reach his ear. The boar whirled in defense, and Len cried: “Run, God A’mighty, run!” I supposed he meant me, but I couldn’t move. I had to see whether Drum got that ear or not. My arm was grabbed and I was viciously shaken. “Ain’t you got a bit o’ sense?” That didn’t seem to matter, but when I had been pulled to safety I managed to say: “Thank you, Len, I guess I’ll--faint.” Which I did, but it was not a desperate lapse. I was up in a few minutes, watching the game between Drum and the boar, and commenting on it in a meekly diminished voice.

It was worth seeing. Drum clearly understood his difficulty. He was to get his teeth into the boar’s ear and keep his own body safely guarded from the tossing tusks. They shuttled back and forth, for every time that Drum was near getting a hold the boar would whirl in an effort to drive his tusk into the dog, and this would cause a face-about for both of them. I did not see how the game of wits and muscle could end except by the exhaustion of one or the other; and the boar was doubtless using his last strength. It seemed shockingly unfair for Drum to come so fresh to the contest.

“Be right still; be right still,” Len would say, though nobody needed the adjuration, all being tense and motionless. “Drum’s gittin’ him winded. He’ll land in a minute. Be right still.”

I understood what he meant by “landing” when Drum finally sailed upward and dropped down on the boar’s back just behind his ears.

“He’s got him!” shouted Sam. “Git yer sticks, ever’body. I’ll grab his leg. Y’all be ready to come in, er he’ll tear me up ef Drum’s holt breaks.”

But this time Drum held on, and the boar spun round and round helplessly. It seemed death to approach him, but Sam got behind a rock, lay down, and reached out a long arm, ready to grab a flying hind leg if it should come near.

“Len, you an’ pap git the noose over his nose. Where’s that Burl? Let him an’ Ben hold my legs.” But Burl called from a prudent distance: “He ain’t winded yit. You’d all better keep out.”

“Dern yer white skin,” said Sam, “git back to yer dry-goods box in Asheville. Ben, you an’ Ted ketch holt o’ my legs.” They obeyed, bracing their feet against the rock, getting ready, it appeared, to pull Sam in two. Len, holding a big club, took the dangerous position of granpap’s guard in his attempts to noose the boar. Snead was to tie another rope about the leg if Sam succeeded in grabbing it.

There was a ragged, throaty shout. Sam had him. Snead, too reckless, rushed in on the wrong side and had to rush out again.

“Tie him, kain’t you?” puffed Sam. “I ain’t no snake, I kain’t live in two pieces!” Snead made another rush and got the rope securely tied. This freed Sam, who made a grab for the other hapless hind leg of the boar, and the two were then made fast together. The animal, crazed by the outrage, tossed his tusks in a last desperation, and Drum’s hold broke. The dog was thrown ten feet, just as granpap, by a miraculous move, got the noose around the boar’s nose above his tusks.

“Pap’s done it!” cried Len. And “Pap’s got him!” echoed Sam. “Me fer granpap!” shouted Ben. “Smart fer ol’ bones,” said Snead; and “Hurrah, granpap!” said I, to be with the tide.

“I couldn’t ’a’ beat it,” said Burl, and Len turned on him. “Ef you want to marry my girl, you’ll have to carry a better gun’n I do.”

“You got to pay fer my dog,” said Burl, backing off.

“When hell cools butter,” said Len. “Shet yer mouth ef you can do it with them tight breeches on.” Then his angry spurt was over. “You goin’ to he’p carry this thing in home?”

Burl came trippingly forward and looked at the boar. Forefeet and back were tied, and a long pole thrust under them. Safely trussed, but the tusks looked alive. “I’ll he’p at his hind feet,” said Burl, and laughter rolled over him.

“You walk ahead to keep the bears an’ Injuns off us,” said Len. “Ben, you an’ Sam git aholt the hind end o’ that pole. Me an’ Ted’ll take the front.”

They took off their jackets and, doubling them up, placed them between their shoulders and the pole.

“Won’t it hurt him?” I asked, as they swung their load.

“Hurt that feller? I jest wish we could,” said Sam.

I remembered that the creature was revenue and hardened my heart. We ought to get twenty-five dollars, at least, for him, half of which would be mine, the other half going to Sam and Len.

As it was easier to keep around the side of the hill with their heavy load, and come into the trail lower down, I said that I would go up to the ridge and get Serena. I should be glad to be out of sight of the pathetic monster swinging in torture from the pole.

I got up the hill, and at some distance caught sight of Serena’s fire. She was placidly singing, in utter detachment from little Ross, who was “playing horse” up and down the ridge. The song was her favorite ballad about the cruelty of sundering true lovers. She liked to repeat it; and though she usually began singing in a robust major key, with each repetition her tone would become more plaintive. She was now at her happiest, in an unbearably wailing minor. The girl, persecuted by obdurate parents, had wandered from home

“And rambled the green growing meadows around,
Until she came to a clear broad river,
And under a green shade-tree sat down.

She then took o--u--t a silver dagger-r,
And percht it thr--ough her lily-white breast,
And these words uttered as she staggered,
‘True love, true l--o--ve, I’m goin’ to rest.’”

And her lover, being at that very moment on that clear, broad river, and passing that very tree,

“He ran, he r--a--n, he ran unto her,”

and picking up the same silver dagger, he “percht it through his weeping heart,” and Serena sang to the world:

“Let this be a gr--ea--t and awful warning,
To all who ke--e--p true lovers apart;
To all who ke--e--p true lovers apart.”

“Serena,” said I gently, “wouldn’t you just as soon say ‘pierced’ as ‘percht’?”

“That wouldn’t be doin’ right by granmommie. She always sung it thataway, an’ she was a hundred and three when she died, an’ died in her cheer. She knowed what she’s about to the last minute. She sung it ‘percht,’ an’ I wouldn’t change it noways. My, but you look like you’d been bee-huntin’ in a locus’ patch!”

“I’ve had a good time, Serena.”

“So’ve I,” she said, getting up. “An’ I didn’t resk my life fer it nuther.”

We were to meet the men at the place where the spotted sow lay tied. Serena and I arrived first by a few minutes, as the men travelled slowly with their burden, and stopped frequently to “change the bone.” We found the sow quiet and sullen. There was only the one pig with her.

“We must find the other pigs,” I said to the men, when they came up blowing and put their load down.

“We kain’t do that. It’s turnin’ colder, an’ it’ll be night now ’fore we git in home with this chap.”

“But they’re so little! They’ll starve!”

“Oh, half of ’em’ll scratch through alive. Let’s go fer water, boys.”

Everybody but myself went round the side of the hill to the spring. I stayed to ponder on the extravagant method of bringing in wild hogs. The thought of those ten or more little black-and-pink creatures shivering in the woods until starvation released them was more than I could passively bear. I looked at the rope, and found it tied in what to me was an unalterable knot. But I could cut it by laying it against a rock and rubbing it with the sharp edge of another rock. I found the stones I wanted and set to work, making the rope as ragged as possible. When the stringy ends dropped no one would have suspected that the rope had been cut. The sow rushed off with her little pig following, and they were soon out of sight. Then I found that I too was longing for water, and hurried to the spring. I knew I should find the others lingering, each wanting to get in one more comment on the inexhaustible subject of the capture.

“We’d better git back,” said Len at last. “Pap, you can drive the sow in. Thanks to gracious, we don’t have to carry _her_.”

It was an angry and bewildered group that paused at the spot where the sow had been tied.

“Dern her sides, wha’d she mean by layin’ here all day an’ breakin’ the rope at the last minute?” said Sam. “It wuz a good rope too. There wuzn’t a weak spot in it.”

“I reckon it _wuz_ a good rope,” complained Len. “That young-un got holt o’ my plough-lines. I wouldn’t ’a’ give ’em fer that ol’ sow.”

“Ain’t it a cussin’ shame now Mis’ Dolly won’t git nothin’? Ha’f that sow would ’a’ been hern. ’Course the b’ar is pap’s. It wuz pap ’at got in the throw that tied him.”

It was a moment before I got the full meaning of Sam’s words, and when I did my astounded silence seemed to create a slight embarrassment.

“Pap’ll give her a part,” said Len, “ef she wants to take it. Mebbe she didn’t ’zackly mean what she told him ’bout havin’ what he could ketch. It’ll disappint pap, but we ain’t goin’ to have no hard feelin’ ’bout an ol’ b’ar hog.”

“I’m shore glad,” said Sam, “that she saw pap ketch him, an’s got her own eyes fer it. I wouldn’t take a throwed-away dish-rag off’n her underhand. Ez fer her not meanin’ what she said, her word’s as good in the woods as ’tis in the meetin’-house. Ever’body’ll tell ye that. ’Tain’t jest me a-talkin’.”

My inward tumult subsided. There was no profit in rebellion when the elements were against me. I looked at granpap, silent and apart, chewing his bit of dogwood.

“What about it, granpap?”

“What y’all say’s good enough fer me.”

No help there, so I yielded with a gaiety that left them slightly puzzled, not understanding the lubricant value of a good laugh at oneself.

“The victory is yours, granpap. Let’s get him home.”

There was a buzz of spirited talk, all to show granpap that he was to be congratulated. When we started again Snead proposed going by Abe Siler’s.

“He’ll buy that feller right off the pole, an’ we’ll save time by drappin’ him there. Abe’s wantin’ to git a hog to pen right now, an’ he’ll give you six dollars fer that b’ar.”

“Six dollars!” I exclaimed. “Three weeks with all the corn he wants, and he’ll weigh out forty dollars’ worth of meat!”

“It ’ud make a big hole in my pile o’ corn,” said granpap.

“You gittin’ it wrong, Mis’ Dolly,” said Snead. “B’ar meat as old as that feller is stringy an’ tough, an’ don’t make no grease to talk about. Ain’t hardly anybody’ll buy it. Ol’ Abe ain’t pertickler ef he gits it cheap. He’ll take the green meat to Carson an’ sell it. Six dollars is top money fer him.”

“Yer talkin’ right, Ag,” said granpap. “Let’s go by Abe’s.”

We went by Abe’s, and granpap pocketed five dollars for the hog, the buyer considering six a “masterous price.”

Everybody seemed happy going home, except for a few regrets over the sow that got away, and a wail from little Ross for his lost pig. Everybody except myself. I was reflecting heavily in terms of profit and loss. All of my farm-help had given a day’s work; they would give another to-morrow, helping Snead. Four men two days meant a loss to me of eight days’ labor. Coretta would surely shame me into contributing toward new shoes and overalls for Sam. I must also count my disturbing escape from starting a feud; must even consider future entanglements on that score. Nor should I forget the emotional waste due to seeing every member of the party narrowly and frequently elude death from pitching head over heels into a rock-bed. And to its hopeless depths I must consider the probability of becoming indentured to the family of some ghost who had sacrificed his fleshly part in bringing out “my” hogs; that is, if I persisted in exploiting my claim.

Snead dropped back and put an end to my list of contingencies. His voice was intimately lowered and I caught Sam’s eye following him furtively.

“I hate to see a woman git the worst of it when she’s tryin’ to be fair,” he began. “You’ve got a fine hog-claim, an’ you ought to be gittin’ something out of it. How many hogs hev the boys brought in fer ye this year?”

“This is the first time we’ve been after them.”

“’Course, though, the boys hev been out more’n onct amarkin’ shotes?”

“I don’t know about that.”

“Well, I do, fer I’ve seen ’em.” He called to Sam. “Sam, how many shotes did ye git marked that day I seed ye out fer ’em?”

Sam did not flinch under the attack. “We marked a fine lot,” he said. “I don’t jest remember how many. I been meanin’ to tell ye ’bout that, Mis’ Dolly, ’cause you’ll be wantin’ to ’low us something fer the markin’. It’s shore hard work. That wuz when you’s gone to Hiwassee, an’ I fergot to tell ye when you come home. I knowed you’d make it all right.”

“What’s it worth to mark hogs, Sam?”

“It’s _worth_ more’n ketchin’ ’em, ’cause we’ve got to ketch ’em an’ mark ’em, an’ turn ’em loose. But we’re goin’ to make it easier on you than that.”

I exonerate Sam from any intention of charging me for “turning them loose.” He was merely embellishing his defense. But by a brief calculation I saw that if I gave half the value of the hogs for catching and bringing them in, and the other half, or a little less, for marking the young, I would have to pursue my profit with a microscope.

Snead again took up his confidential tone. “I ain’t a man fer makin’ trouble, an’ there ain’t anybody in a hundred miles o’ me can swear I ever accused him o’ sellin’ other folks’ hogs; but I wish you’d a gone by Ham Copp’s next day an’ seed what he had in his pen. I ain’t sayin’ what, an’ I never will say what, in court er out, but I ’low you’d know yer own mark.”

Sam and Len had hastily entered upon a subdued conference of their own, and just then Sam called to Snead.

“Wha’d you say, Uncle Ag, ef we don’t he’p ye to-morr’, an’ call it square about them shotes you ain’t paid fer yit?”

He was staggered, taken in the open, but rallied jauntily.

“All right, boys; jest as you say.”

Sam turned to me. “We didn’t tell ye ’bout them shotes Uncle Ag got, ’cause he was in sech a hole ’bout payin’ fer ’em, an’ nacherly we didn’t want to worry ye till we got it fixed. Now he gits our part o’ the shotes fer he’ppin’ us to-day, an’ we’re willin’ to take _yore_ part fer the markin’ you owes us, an’ wait on Uncle Ag fer it, seein’ we made sech a slow trade fer ye.”

By then I was in a position to foretell just the amount of revenue that in all time to come I was going to derive from my claim.

“We don’t want to take any downright money from ye, Mis’ Dolly,” explained Sam. “You’ve never been hard on us, an’ we kain’t afford to be hard on _you_. An’ by fixin’ it the way I said, ever’body’ll be satisfied, an’ you won’t be out nothin’ but a few shotes.”

“And a few shotes, Sam, don’t matter when I’ve got the woods full of them.”

“That’s what I wuz goin’ to say.”

“A man with the woods full of hogs is in a pretty good fix, isn’t he?”

“Jest about fat rich, Mis’ Dolly.”

“Then you and Len are rich. The hog-claim is yours.”

They thought it a joke at first, and I labored to convince them; then they insisted on my keeping half of it.

“No, boys,” I persisted generously. “That would mix up our calculations. As it is, you’ll know what you’ve got, and I’ll know what I’ve got.”

“You’re right about that,” said Sam.

“I want to say, too, that this deal works backward. If there’s anybody owing for hogs, the debt is yours, and you needn’t ever bother me about it.”

“An’ if any meddlin’ ol’ loafer comes tellin’ ye ’bout seein’ hogs here, there, an’ yander, in other folks’ pens, from time back,” said Sam, with the dignity of righteousness, “it won’t be wuth a blue bean to him.”

“I’ll send him to you and Len. It will be your affair, not mine.”

At that, Len came over to me. His face was serious but glowing. “I knowed you’s white,” he said, “but I didn’t know jest how white you wuz. Abe Siler’s beggin’ me underhand to leave you an’ work on his place. Next time he asts me, I’m goin’ to bust my knuckles on them two big front teeth o’ hisn.”

Len, who was noted as a “clean-crop-man,” was the most coveted tenant within three townships. I had bought his loyalty cheap.

Sam, of coarser but shrewder mind, spared me any disconcerting gratitude. Before their early bedtime I was to hear his comment to Coretta, who was shedding grateful tears.

“Aw, shet up, K’rettie. I reckon she’s got sense enough to know that the woods full o’ hogs ain’t wuth much to a woman.”