The light in the window of Auntie Sue's room went out. The soft moonlight flooded mountain and valley and stream. The mad waters at Elbow Rock roared in their wild fury. Always, always—irresistibly, inevitably, unceasingly—the river poured its strength toward the sea.
CHAPTER V.
AUNTIE SUE RECOGNIZES A GENTLEMAN.
Before the sun was high enough to look over Schoolhouse Hill, the next morning, Judy went into the garden to dig some potatoes.
Tom Warden's boys would come, some day before long, and dig them all, and put them away in the cellar for the winter. But there was no need to hurry the gathering of the full crop, so the boys would come when it was most convenient; and, in the meantime, Judy would continue to dig from day to day all that were needed for the kitchen in the little log house by the river. In spite of her poor crooked body, the mountain girl was strong and well used to hard work, so the light task was, for her, no hardship at all.
As one will when first coming out of doors in the morning, Judy paused a moment to look about. The sky, so clear and bright the evening before, was now a luminous gray. The mountains were lost in a ghostly world of fog, through which the river moved in stealthy silence—a dull thing of mystery, with only here and there a touch of silvery light upon its clouded surface. The cottonwoods and willows, on the opposite shore, were mere dreams of trees—gray, formless, and weird. The air was filled with the dank earth-smell. The heavy thundering roar of the never-ending war of the waters at Elbow Rock came louder and more menacing, but strangely unreal, as if the mist itself were filled with threatening sound.
But to Judy, the morning was only the beginning of another day;—she looked, but did not see. To her, the many ever-changing moods of Nature were without meaning. With her basket in hand, she went down to the lower end of the garden, where she had dug potatoes the time before, and where she had left the fork sticking upright in the ground.
A few minutes served to fill the basket; but, before starting back to the house, the mountain girl paused again to look out over the river. Perhaps it was some vague memory of Auntie Sue's talk, the night before, that prompted her; perhaps it was some instinct, indefinite and obscure;—whatever it was that influenced her, Judy left her basket, and went to the brink of the high bank above the eddy for a closer view of the water.
The next instant, with the quick movement of an untamed creature of her native mountain forests, the girl sprang back, and crouched close to the ground to hide from something she had seen at the foot of the bank. Every movement of her twisted body expressed amazement and fear. Her eyes were wild and excited. She looked carefully about, as if for dangers that might be hidden in the fog. Once, she opened her mouth as if to call. Half-rising, she started as if to run to the house. But, presently, curiosity apparently overruled her fear, and, throwing herself flat on the ground she wormed her way back to the brink of the river-bank. Cautiously, without making a sound, she peered through the tall grass and weeds that fringed the rim above the eddy.
The boat, which some kindly impulse of the river had drawn so gently aside from the stronger current that would have carried it down the rapids to the certain destruction waiting at Elbow Rock, still rested with its bow grounded on the shore, against which the eddying water had pushed it. But the thing that had so startled Judy was a man who was lying, apparently unconscious, on the wet and muddy bottom-boards of the little craft.
Breathlessly, the girl, looking down from the top of the bank, watched for some movement; but the dirty huddled heap of wretched humanity was so still that she could not guess whether it was living or dead. Fearfully, she noted that there were no oars in the boat, nor gun, nor fishing-tackle of any sort. The man's hat was missing. His clothing was muddy and disarranged. His position was such that she could not see the face.
Drawing back, Judy looked cautiously about; then, picking up a heavy clod of dirt from the ploughed edge of the garden, and crouching again at the brink of the bank, ready for instant flight, she threw the clod into the water near the boat. The still form in the boat made no movement following the splash. Selecting a smaller clod, the girl threw the bit of dirt into the stern of the boat itself, where it broke in fragments. And, at this, the figure moved slightly.
“Hit's alive, all right,” commented Judy to herself, with a grin of satisfaction, at the result of her investigation. “But hit's sure time he was a-gittin' up.”
Carefully selecting a still smaller bit of dirt, she deliberately tossed it at the figure itself. Her aim was true, and the clod struck the man on the shoulder, with the result that he stirred uneasily, and, muttering something which Judy could not hear, half-turned on his back so that the girl saw the haggard, unshaven face. She saw, too, that, in one hand, the man clutched an empty whisky bottle.
At sight of the bottle, the mountain girl rose to her feet with an understanding laugh. “Hell!” she said aloud; “drunk—that's all—dead drunk. I'll sure fetch him out of hit.” And then, grinning with malicious delight, she proceeded to pelt the man in the boat with clods of dirt until he scrambled to a sitting posture, and looked up in bewildered confusion.
“If you please,” he said, in a hoarse voice, to the sallow, old-young face that grinned down at him from the top of the bank, “which one of the Devil's imps are you?”
As she looked into that upturned face, Judy's grin vanished. “I sure 'lowed as how you-all was dead,” she explained.
“Well,” returned the man in the boat, wearily, “I can assure you that it's not in the least my fault if I disappoint you. I feel as bad about it as you do. However, I don't think I am so much alive that it makes any material difference.” He lifted the whisky bottle, and studied it thoughtfully.
“You-all come dad burned near not bein' ary bit alive,” returned the girl.
“Yes?” said the man, inquiringly.
“Yep; you sure did come mighty nigh hit. If your old John-boat had a-carried you-all on down ter Elbow Rock, 'stead of bein' ketched in the eddy here, you-all would sure 'nough been a-talkin' to the Devil by now.”
The man, looking out over the river into the fog, muttered to himself, “I can't even make a success of dying, it seems.”
Again, he regarded the empty bottle in his hand with studied interest. Then, tossing the bottle into the river, he looked up, once more, to the girl on the bank above.
“Listen, sister!” he said, nervously. “Is there any place around here where I can buy a drink? I need something rather badly. Where am I, anyway?”
“You-all are at Auntie Sue's place,” said Judy; “an' there sure ain't no chance for you-all ter git ary licker here. Where'd you-all come from, anyhow? How'd you-all git here 'thout no oars ner paddle ner nothin'? Where was you-all aimin' ter go?”
“Your questions, my good girl, are immaterial and irrelevant,” returned the man in the boat. “The all-important matter before us for consideration is—how can I get a drink? I MUST have a drink, I tell you!” He held up his hands, and they were shaking as if with palsy. “And I must have it damned quick!”
“You-all sure do talk some powerful big words,” said Judy, with critical interest. “You-all sure must be some eddecated. Auntie Sue, now, she talks—”
The man interrupted her: “Who is 'Auntie Sue'?”
“I don't know,” Judy returned; “she's just Auntie Sue—that's all I know. She sure is—”
Again the man interrupted: “I