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Title: The Land is Bright
Author: Kjelgaard, James Arthur (1910-1959)
Date of first publication: 1958
Edition used as base for this ebook:
   New York: Dodd, Mead, 1958
   [first edition]
Date first posted: 28 February 2012
Date last updated: 28 February 2012
Project Gutenberg Canada ebook #919

This ebook was produced by
David T. Jones, Ross Cooling, Greg Weeks
& the Online Distributed Proofreading Canada Team
at http://www.pgdpcanada.net






  THE LAND IS BRIGHT




  _Other books by_ Jim Kjelgaard

     THE LOST WAGON
     BIG RED
     REBEL SIEGE
     FOREST PATROL
     BUCKSKIN BRIGADE
     CHIP, THE DAM BUILDER
     FIRE HUNTER
     IRISH RED
     KALAK OF THE ICE
     A NOSE FOR TROUBLE
     SNOW DOG
     TRAILING TROUBLE
     WILD TREK
     THE EXPLORATIONS OF PERE MARQUETTE
     THE SPELL OF THE WHITE STURGEON
     OUTLAW RED
     THE COMING OF THE MORMONS
     CRACKER BARREL TROUBLE SHOOTER
     LION HOUND
     TRADING JEFF AND HIS DOG
     DESERT DOG
     HAUNT FOX
     THE OKLAHOMA LAND RUN
     DOUBLE CHALLENGE
     SWAMP CAT




  THE LAND IS BRIGHT

  by
  JIM KJELGAARD



  DODD, MEAD & COMPANY
  New York




   _1958 by Jim Kjelgaard_

  _All rights reserved_

  _No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission
  in writing from the publisher_


  _Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 58-8284_


  _Printed in the United States of America
  by Vail-Ballou Press, Inc., Binghamton, N. Y._




  To Lucille and Robert Albers, who do unto others




  Contents

   1. The Judge                    1
   2. Colin                       27
   3. Hobbs Creek                 45
   4. Christmas                   63
   5. Campbell Hill               79
   6. The Housewarming            95
   7. Recruits                   109
   8. Wetherly                   125
   9. March to Manassas          141
  10. Williamsburg, '62          155
  11. Interlude                  173
  12. Disaster                   185
  13. Suicide Stand              201
  14. Return to Quail Wings      215
  15. Homecoming                 227




_The characters, places, incidents and situations in this book are
imaginary and have no relation to any person, place or actual
happening_




  THE LAND IS BRIGHT




  CHAPTER I

  The Judge


Ling Stewart went into the predawn blackness to harness the horse while
his wife, Ann, remained at the breakfast table. The steadily burning
candle softly illumined part of the long table and cast a little circle
of light on either side, but the far corners of the room remained in
shadow. As she sat there, Ann read in those dim shadows a portent of
things to be.

Several days ago, William Bodine, a Wetherly merchant, had tried to
cheat Ling out of part of a bale of furs that Ling had offered for sale.
Doubtless, after following his usual practice of asking hunters to help
themselves at the whiskey barrel, Bodine had carried the bale of furs
into a rear room, stolen five deer skins and three fox pelts and claimed
they had never been present. Ling had reacted characteristically and
knocked Bodine down. Day before yesterday, the sheriff from the next
county, whose court served the area, had ridden up to inform Ling that
Bodine had preferred charges of felonious assault and that he, Ling
Stewart, would have to answer those charges in Denbury Court. Ann had
expected a felonious assault on the sheriff himself, and she had been
enormously relieved when Ling merely listened amiably. When he told her
that he intended to obey the summons, she was dizzy with astonishment.

Now they were readying themselves for the trip into Denbury, some
fifteen miles distant, and Ling's day in court.

Ann rose, and with efficient economy of movement brought about by long
practice, gathered up the dishes and put them in a pan. She stooped to
swing the hook that held a kettle of warm water over the fire, laid a
folded cloth on her hand and poured the water over the dishes. Then she
opened a door that led into an adjoining room, bent over the nearest of
two small beds and whispered, "Jeffrey!"

The child in the far bed awakened first and called out, "Mama?"

Ann sighed inwardly. Her husband was the most skillful hunter in Hobbs
Creek, a community of hunters. Just past three years of age, baby Ling
was wide awake at a sound that had failed even to disturb his older
brother; he was his father reborn. Ann said softly, "Go back to sleep,
Lingo."

"Yes, Mama."

He lay down but not to sleep, for the candle's light showed his bright
eyes fixed steadily on her. Ann whispered a second time, "Jeffrey!"

Now he, too, was suddenly awake and alert, with no pause between sleep
and wakefulness. Raiding Cherokees and renegade white men might
occasionally prowl here, and even small children learned early that the
difference between drowsy and instant wakening could mean the difference
between dying and living. Far more gentle than his brother, resembling
Ann as much as the younger boy resembled Ling, he spoke softly, "Yes,
Mama?"

"Papa and I will be gone all day. It's much too early for you to get up,
but when the time comes tell Gramp to fix breakfast eggs for you, Lingo
and himself. Tell him to serve milk, cornbread and butter with it. After
breakfast he is to wash the dishes. Then he is to feed and milk the cows
. . ." She recited, very precisely, the chores to be done, concluding
with, "Then he is to go to bed and you must tuck Lingo in."

"I put myself to bed," baby Ling declared.

"Hush!" Ann breathed. "After Lingo is in bed, you are to tuck yourself
in. Do you understand, darling?"

"I must tell Gramps to cook breakfast eggs for me, Ling and himself, and
to have . . ." He repeated exactly what she'd said and Ann listened
patiently. When he finished, she said fondly, "That's my darling! Go
back to sleep now."

She stooped to kiss him and crossed to the other bed to kiss her younger
son, urging him back to sleep. Then she tiptoed from the room and softly
closed the door behind her. A throbbing excitement stole some of her
nervous fear. Lighting her way with the candle, she went into the
bedroom she shared with Ling. She opened a trunk and took from it a
gown, a beribboned bonnet and a coat that had been very smart ten years
ago.

Slipping out of her gingham house dress, Ann put on the gown and while
she reveled in the luxury of silk and velvet, she gave silent thanks for
a stubborn little whim that she had insisted on pursuing. She had gone
nowhere in ten years and there had seemed no faint possibility that she
would go anywhere, but it had given her soul a necessary balm to keep
the best of the adolescent Ann's clothing for the woman she had become.
Ruthlessly destroying one garment to piece out another, over the years
she had watched the extensive wardrobe that Enos had provided shrink to
two gowns, the coat, five bonnets and a scattered heap of remnants. She
smoothed the gown, slipped into the coat, tilted the bonnet on her
blue-black curls and suddenly and mightily wished for a full-length
mirror.

There was none, but Ann's imagination created one. She stepped lightly
in front of it, turned, pirouetted. Then the front door opened and Ling
came in.

Hastily she caught up the candle, returned to the other room and stifled
a giggle. Ling was tall, dark, lean and graceful, and Ann had always
thought his eyes wonderfully gentle until she had discovered how swiftly
storms could arise within them. But now he was wide-eyed and clumsily
gawking as he stared at her.

"My gosh!" he blurted. "My gosh, Ann! You're pretty's a yearlin' doe on
new spring grass!"

"Do you like it?" she asked, smiling.

His engaging grin flashed. "'Cept for one thing."

"And what is that?"

"I'd best tote along a club to beat off them young Denbury bucks."

"Of course!" she teased. "You'll need one in each hand."

"Ready?"

"All ready."

She hoped he couldn't hear her sigh of relief when he came to her side
without even glancing at the firearms rack. He seldom went anywhere
without a gun, even out to split wood in the barn, and she dreaded the
possible consequences if he entered Denbury armed. The fact that he
obviously intended to go unarmed made more complex a situation that was
already bewildering. Ann sought the reason and presently found it.

Ling was condescendingly tolerant at best, and scathingly contemptuous
at worst, of anyone who submitted to restriction in any form. He
considered the residents of Denbury and all other towns to be some
rather low form of life which happened to look human. This life couldn't
possibly be human because, in Ling's opinion, no man would ever
relinquish a fraction of the freedom to be found in the wilderness for
any security that could be had in town. Town-dwellers were his enemies
and as such they might turn on him, but they were such puny creatures
that he need not bother to go armed among them.

Given reason, Ling would attack anyone, including the judge of Denbury
Court, with his fists. But at least he wasn't likely to kill anyone, and
with that comforting thought Ann walked outside toward the carriage.

Having been in a stall all night, the horse felt rambunctious and
showed his feelings by vigorously pawing the earth. The black carriage
was only dimly seen in the dark, but when Ling turned a blanket aside, a
lantern glowed from beneath it. "All right, honey. Get in," he said.

She climbed into the seat, turning her face from the raw wind as she did
so, but when Ling got in on the other side and drew the blanket over
them, the lantern's heat warmed her legs and feet. She looked
wonderingly at her husband. He would never have thought of the lantern
if he had been going alone, but he had considered her comfort.

Ling caught up the reins, the horse trotted forward and Ann meditated on
her own part in this curious adventure. She had assented readily when he
asked her to come with him, but she had wondered then, and wondered
still, why he wanted her along.

In the twenty-one years since his father brought him to Hobbs Creek,
Ling had visited no settlement larger than Wetherly. With four
hundred-odd residents, it was the largest settlement in the county. In
the woods he was master. But for all his braggadocio and superiority to
townsmen, and for all the bulldog courage that bade him face his enemies
wherever they might be, he quailed because he must venture into a town
he had never visited. She'd wondered why he wanted her along! Why, he'd
rather face ten angry bears than face the judge of Denbury Court alone.
She could not hide a chuckle.

"What's funny?" he asked.

"You going meekly in to answer a sheriff's summons."

"Bodine ain't goin' to face me down!"

"More to the point, and more important, you're going to defend a point
of justice where it should be defended--in court."

He said uncomprehendingly, "Uh huh."

They left the valley, climbed a forested hill and broke into the Pollard
clearing. Ann saw her father's house, the scholarly retreat Enos had
planned and caused to be built, softly beautiful among shadows.
Sometimes the house was a place of horror from which she shrank.
Sometimes the sight of it brought back happy memories of another and
very different life, long, long ago. This was such a time, and Ann's
serene and happy mood held until they left the clearing.

Presently the warmth of the lantern and the monotonous motion of the
carriage made her drowsy. She nodded, awakened and nodded again. At last
she slept with her head on Ling's shoulder.

    *    *    *    *    *

When the sun had fully risen, they had left the mountains behind them,
crossed the broad and sluggish Connicon River and entered the wide
plateau of Denbury County. Here the land was green and fertile,
plantation country. Their road paralleled the Connicon and now and then
they passed a stately mansion across the river which faced the willow
trees lining the riverbank. On their side of the river the houses were
less grand and the fields more indifferently kept.

"I thought there were no poor planters," Ann said, by now wide awake
and looking about eagerly.

Ling grinned. This plantation was poor only in comparison with the
lavish establishments on the other side of the river. "Didn't you take
to mind how all the rest front right on the river and got their own
wharfs? They can tote their corn an' wheat an' tobacco on river boats
and have an easy haul to that agent's warehouse we passed a ways back."

"Tom Dare," Ann quoted from the sign she had seen on the warehouse.

"Well, this fella here has got to tote all his crops on wagons because
he's too far from the river, and that costs. He jest can't handle as
much."

Ann marveled at Ling. Probably these were the first plantations he had
ever seen; he could neither read nor write; but he had acute powers of
observation, and he could analyze what he had observed. She wondered
suddenly what heights he might have achieved if he had had an education.
And then at the sight of the loveliest plantation they had yet passed,
she gasped with pleasure and lost herself in looking. The house,
surrounded by spacious lawns and huge trees, was set well back from the
river, its rosy brick overgrown with ivy and its windows sparkling in
the morning sun.

"Look, Ling! Look!"

"Sure is mighty nice."

"Quail Wings it's called," Ann said reading from the sign on the wharf.

"Mighty nice name, too," Ling said. "But none suits me like the house
your Dad built up in the mountains. That is the prettiest house I ever
did see."

"It was once," Ann answered quietly.

Soon they approached the town of Denbury itself, and the wonders to be
seen came one on top of another. It seemed no time at all before they
were in Denbury and Ann gasped, "Oh, Ling--look!"

"Right sweet," Ling acknowledged. "But they walked as if they'd been
hobbled."

Ann did not answer. She was hungrily watching two young ladies of
fashion walking side by side down a wooden sidewalk. They were slim,
sparkling, vibrant as young people should be. Above and beyond that, and
infinitely more important, they were town-dwellers. As she watched, they
entered a shop beneath a gilt-lettered sign that read "Ladies'
Clothing." Smaller letters under the sign announced that Mlle. Helen
Fouch of Paris, France, was the proprietress. Ann glimpsed feathered
bonnets and gleaming silks. She turned to gaze back wistfully until they
were well past Mlle. Fouch's.

Ling's "I'll be jugged!" roused her.

They both stared wide-eyed at the splendid coach approaching them, drawn
by four perfectly matched grays and manned by a liveried Negro footman
and two coachmen. The windows were curtained, so they were unable to see
the personage who commanded such magnificence.

"I'll be jugged!" Ling said again.

Ann breathed, "It's even more wonderful than I remembered," and then,
"Look, Ling!"

Ann had discovered a hardware store, a commonplace to any townsman but a
fairyland to her. Just across the street was a small shop with "Genris
Darson, Carpenter" painted in black letters over the window. A Negro
coming up the sidewalk stepped aside to let a white man pass.

Ann continued to gasp, to exclaim, and only by exercising rigid
self-control could she keep from pointing. Ling's brief answers were
entirely satisfactory; she wouldn't have heard him if he'd said anything
more. But she did notice when the horse swung, turned and halted. She
glanced at Ling and then followed his steady gaze.

A brick building, by far the largest and most imposing she had seen in
the town of Denbury, stood well back on a lawn still green, though the
surrounding maples and poplars were bare. Above its verandah, supported
by white marble pillars, was a facade bearing a sculpture of blindfolded
Justice eternally weighing human fate in the balance. The words "Denbury
Courthouse" were chiseled into stone beneath the figure.

Ann knew instantly why they were here. Ling was following his deepest
instincts. If he were going into Cherokee country, he would reconnoiter.
In Denbury, he saw no reason to do otherwise.

"The paper said we're due in court at half past one?" Ling asked.

"Yes."

He glanced at the sky and said, "Must be quarter-past eleven now. Let's
go."

Soon they were entering a livery stable that Ling had seen, but she had
missed, on the way down. A white-haired Negro came forward.

Ling greeted him amiably. "Howdy, Cap'n."

"How do, suh."

"You care for horses here?"

"Yes, suh."

"How much?"

"Twenty fi' cents."

"Heap o' money for jest takin' care of a horse," Ling objected.

The old man rolled worried eyes. "Hit's what we gits."

"Come on, Ling," Ann pleaded. "Pay him and let's go."

He paid, but when he took her arm to escort her across the street she
knew he had suffered a shock. In Hobbs Creek, if a man decided to go
away, any neighbor would gladly care for his stock and ask nothing
except permission to feed from the owner's stores. If he had none,
they'd care for his creatures anyway and let him return the fodder when
he could.

Ann stepped back into the sheer delight of just looking about her. By
some magical process her body seemed able to defy the law of gravity as
they entered the Denbury House, Rooms at Moderate Rates. It was she who
saw the sign that indicated the dining room.

"This way."

"I'm with you."

Her conscience smote her. "You should have let me pack a lunch."

"Huh!" Three drummers sitting idly in the lobby look startled and
glanced up. "We come to town, we eat at a eatin' house."

"It's very thoughtful of you."

Ling grinned. "First meal you ain't had to rustle in . . . how many
years, Ann?"

They entered the dining room, the tables dazzling beneath white linen
and polished dinner ware. A colored waiter with a blue jacket, a grey
shirt, a small head, and incredibly long legs sheathed in yellow hose,
looked so remarkably like a great blue heron waiting for an incautious
frog to venture near that Ann wanted to laugh. As though he had long
been immune to what might be said or done, the waiter escorted them to a
table, gave each a menu and shuffled away so silently that his shoes
might have had no contact with the floor. Ling pretended to study his
menu, but as soon as the waiter left, he looked over it at Ann.

"What the jughead's this?" he asked, waving the menu.

"A list of the food they offer."

"They must expect a mort of company."

"Now let me see," Ann read for him. "They're serving fish, mackerel."

"Don't trust them outland fish. What else?"

"Pork pie, beef stew, choice steak . . ."

"Honest to John beefsteak?"

"Of course."

"I'll have me some," Ling declared, and almost as an afterthought he
added, "How much?"

"Thirty-five cents."

"Dunno why everybody 'round here ain't rich," Ling growled, then smiled
his apology. He had brought his wife to town. Let the sky be the limit.

Ann chose a chicken pie. She also ordered coffee, not because she was
fond of that beverage but because coffee was a symbol of luxury. Ling
looked with interest at her cup.

"What's that?"

"Coffee."

"Good?"

"Try some," she invited.

He picked up her cup, gulped a mouth full of the steaming black brew,
grimaced and replaced the cup.

"Great gobs of mud! You can have it!"

Ann sipped her coffee, and tried hard to look as though she were
enjoying it because Ling watched her every move. They finished with
chocolate layer cake. Ling ate quickly and heartily but Ann lingered
over every forkful; this memory must endure for a very long while. A
third of her cake remained uneaten when he said, "Gittin' on that time."

She said reluctantly, "Then we'd better go."

She hesitated, hoping against hope that he would help her with her coat,
but she stifled the sigh that threatened when he did not. She knew it
had simply never occurred to Ling that a young, healthy woman needed any
help in a matter as fundamental as putting on her coat. Ling paid the
bill and they went back onto the street.

A cold wind blew now, and the sun had grown sickly, bathing Denbury in a
mournful light. As two men passed by, Ann heard a snatch of their
excited conversation.

"Lincoln's election means war! There'll be no stopping it now."

"You're dead right!" his companion agreed.

"Did you hear that, Ling?" Ann asked, when the men were some distance
from them. "Those men said that Lincoln's election means war. I read
about Lincoln in that newspaper you brought back from Wetherly. He wants
to free the slaves and the South will fight to the last man, the paper
said."

"Freein' the slaves is one thing--he can have all of mine," Ling
grinned. "That sounds like planter talk to me, honey. Don't pay it no
mind. Those fellers think they own all creation along with their
slaves."

Side by side, they strode up the walk to the courthouse, but when Ann
started to climb the marble steps she was suddenly aware that Ling was
no longer at her side. When she turned she saw him standing two paces
back and his eyes told her why he had halted. He was not afraid, but he
neither trusted nor understood this place he was supposed to enter. Ann
thought of a captured bear about to be forced into a cage, and she knew
she must take command now.

She said calmly, "Coming, Ling?"

"Yeah, sure."

He joined her and remained at her side as they ascended the steps and
opened the massive doors that stood between the world and Denbury
Court. They looked into the spacious but austere chamber adorned only
with two rather grim portraits, hung side by side, of judges who had
presided here in the past. Benches filled the rear of the hall, but the
only spectator was a thin, sallow man who sat five benches down and hung
with breathless interest on the trial in progress. On the other side of
the aisle, William Bodine and his clerk, Hendry Dexter, sat together.

Ann saw them, looked away and glanced at Ling. He had seen, too, for the
fires leaped in his eyes, but he said nothing. Two benches ahead of the
sallow spectator, Ann found a seat and Ling dropped beside her. She
looked towards the front of the court and, after briefly noting the
bailiff and the aging court clerk, fixed her eyes on the man behind the
judge's bench.

She had somehow expected to find a venerable figure, an old man with a
long white beard. This judge was a young man, she was surprised to see.
Even sitting down, he seemed big, and it was not only his physical
proportions that made him seem so. His robe of office concealed his
upper body, but his head dominated as a rocky crag dominates
tree-covered slopes. It was the head of a Viking, she thought, and then
rejected the thought. No--it was a head of a man who stood alone. A
wealth of fair hair surmounted his face--a face that compensated with
strength for a lack of symmetry. Even at this distance, the judge's keen
blue eyes seemed to probe Ann's innermost mind and read her thoughts.
She had a sudden, powerful notion that she met this man before, so many
times that they were old friends, and immediately she knew that she had
not.

An older man and a spindly youth stood before him. The judge addressed
the youth in a gentle voice. "Willie Matson, do you waive a trial by
jury?"

"Yes--yes, sir," the young man shifted uncomfortably and turned
frightened eyes to the floor.

The judge turned to the older man. "Ned Hale, what charge do you
prefer?"

Hale flicked a stubby thumb at his adversary. "This'n tol' me he was a
journeyman blacksmith. I hired him to shoe m' mules and he stole m'
blacksmith tools."

"Is that true?" the judge asked Willie Matson.

"Yes, sir."

"Why did you steal?"

"He would not pay for the work I did."

The judge turned to Ned Hale. "Why did you refuse to pay him?"

"This'n," Ned Hale flicked his thumb again, "didn' work good."

"Were the mules improperly shod?"

"They was shod proper enough. But this'n--"

"Stop flicking your thumb!" the judge said irritably.

"Sorry y'r Honor. This'n, he took two days for a job what Lightnin'
Joe'd a done in a day an' a half."

"Was a time limit stipulated?"

"Stipu--what?"

"Did Willie Matson understand, before he started working, that he was to
finish in a day and a half?"

"No, y'r Honor. But Lightnin' Joe--"

"That will do," the judge said shortly. "How much did you promise to
pay?"

"Two dollars a day an' found."

"And you might have hired Lightnin' Joe for a dollar a day with no
found?"

"Yes, y'r Honor."

"Why didn't you hire him?"

"He's took with a misery."

The judge addressed Willie Matson. "Where are your own tools?"

"Sold in Richmon'," Willie said miserably. "I needed money for my boat
fare an' to keep me 'til I got work."

"It is the order of this court," the judge pronounced, "that you, Ned
Hale, pay Willie Matson the full sum you promised."

"I like that jedge!" Ling whooped, and Ann sensed that his tension had
given way to admiration. He turned to the sallow spectator and bellowed,
"What's the jedge's name?"

The sallow man squirmed and looked embarrassed. Ling repeated in a
louder voice, "What's the jedge's name?"

The bailiff had come up the aisle so silently that he was beside Ling
and had touched his shoulder before Ling even suspected he was near.
Ling turned to face him.

"You must be quiet in the courtroom," the bailiff warned.

"I jest want to know the jedge's name!"

"Be quiet or I'll have you ejected from court."

"Good!" Ling chuckled. "The jedge himself wants to see me next. What's
his name?"

"Judge Colin Campbell. Now be quiet."

"If you'd told me his name, I'd of been quiet long ago," Ling said
amiably.

Judge Colin Campbell said caustically, "I trust the court will interrupt
no one else if it proceeds with the business at hand." He turned again
to Ned Hale. "Did you understand?"

"But--" the farmer protested.

"At once!" the judge ordered sternly.

Ned Hale said suddenly, "Yes, y'r Honor."

He took out his purse, pressed the required sum into the blacksmith's
hand, and stamped loudly up the aisle. The judge swung to Willie Matson.

"You are to return Ned Hale's tools at once. You are _not_ again to
appear before me on any charge."

"I will, sir! I won't, sir!" Willie's formerly dejected countenance now
sparkled. He tripped happily up the aisle.

The clerk removed the brief that had been on the judge's bench, gave him
a second brief, and the judge bent to read. After a few minutes he
straightened, nodded, and the bailiff called decorously, "_William
Bodine vs. Lingo Stewart_."

"That's me!" Ling said happily.

He rose, and Ann gasped with disbelief at the transformation he had
undergone. Ling had expected the judge to be a weakling, or, at best,
another slick townsman. Instead, he had met a man who commanded his
respect. He slouched easily down the aisle, halted before the bench, and
said amiably, "Howdy, Jedge."

"Howdy," Colin Campbell returned pleasantly. "You're Mr.--?"

"Ling Stewart."

"I see, and is Mr. Bodine here?"

William Bodine and Hendry Dexter had followed Ling up to the bench and
now they sidled unobtrusively in beside him. The merchant said, "I'm Mr.
Bodine, your Honor."

"Who is this third man?"

"Hendry Dexter, my clerk and witness, your Honor. He saw everything."

"Very well. What charges do you prefer, Mr. Bodine?"

"On November 1, 1860, in the main room of my store at Wetherly, Buckshot
County, with no provocation and for no reason, Lingo Stewart feloniously
assaulted my person."

"It's a dirty lie!" Ling gritted.

Ann gasped, but the judge was unabashed. "You deny he charges, Mr.
Stewart?"

"Not all of 'em. I basted him once and I'd o' done it five six more
times 'cept he run in another room an' locked the door. But I didn't do
it 'thout reason!"

"Go on. What was your reason?"

"I toted a bail of twenty-six deer skins and eleven fox pelts to sell at
his store. He took the bale in back, swiped five deer skins and three
fox pelts, then said they was never there."

"Is that true, Mr. Bodine?" Judge Campbell asked.

Bodine smiled tolerantly. "These mountain dwellers can neither read nor
write, your Honor. Therefore they're incapable of keeping a tally except
in their own minds. Almost always they think they bring me more furs
than they do. I needn't remind your Honor that memory is a weak crutch."

"Did you have a tally?" the judge asked Ling.

"Bet your neck!" Ling snorted. "I kind of figgered this skunk cheated me
before an' this time I wanted to make sure."

He took from his pocket an aspen stick that Ann hadn't even suspected he
brought and held it up. The judge leaned forward and appeared to be
interested. Ling explained his private accounting system.

"See them eleven little notches, Jedge, an' them twenty-six big 'uns?
The little ones mean eleven fox pelts and the big 'uns twenty-six deer
skins."

Judge Campbell took the stick, methodically counted the notches in each
category, and returned the stick to Ling. He addressed Bodine.

"Do you object to testifying under oath, Mr. Bodine?"

"Why--no."

"Then I shall ask you to do so. If, after the oath has been
administered, you remain willing to testify that the bale of furs was
short to the numbers you stated, I shall find in your favor."

"But--"

"A mere formality," the judge's voice remained gentle, almost soothing.
"But perhaps I should advise you that, if you testify falsely while
under oath, you incur a mandatory prison sentence for the crime of
perjury."

"I don't see--"

"Why should you hesitate, Mr. Bodine?" Campbell frowned. "Mr. Bodine, if
you refuse to take the oath and testify, I can conclude only that the
bale of furs and skins conformed to Mr. Stewart's count rather than
yours."

"He cheated me plenty of other times!" Bodine snarled.

Ling's voice was an angry bear's growl. "It's another dirty lie!"

The judge rapped for order, waited, and addressed William Bodine. "I
admire neither your methods nor your morals, Mr. Bodine, but since this
is your initial appearance before this court, I am inclined to be
lenient. I fine you twenty-five dollars for your sheer effrontery in
attempting to prosecute a fraudulent case and for thinking you would
succeed. Pay the clerk."

Bodine produced his purse, paid, and turned to go. Colin halted him.

"You are also to pay Mr. Stewart ten dollars as partial compensation for
the inconvenience you have visited upon him."

Ling tucked Bodine's ten dollars into a pocket and turned his shining
face to the judge. "By gosh, Jedge, never did figger to meet a 'town
man' I could take a shine to!"

Judge Campbell murmured politely, "I'm flattered that you've finally met
one in me."

"Sure have! Ever git up Hobbs Crick way?"

"I've missed that pleasure."

"Come!" Ling urged. "First person you meet after you git five miles past
Wetherly'll tell you where I live! I'll show you the best huntin' you
ever did see!"

"Hunting?" Interest leaped up in the judge's eyes and Ann thought he
would have liked to talk at greater length. But he said, "I must ask you
to excuse me, Mr. Stewart. I have some papers to attend to."

"Sure!" Ling boomed. "You goin' out the front way when you're through?"

"Yes."

"We'll bide a mite," Ling declared.

Ann rose to join Ling and together they went back out into the November
afternoon. Presently Ann's eyes darted to a coach waiting in front of
the courthouse. It was the same magnificent coach they had seen when
they first came into town. But now the curtains were drawn back and she
could see its occupant--a young girl.

Only her face, framed by silvery fair curls, her dainty neck and
shoulders and the hand that parted the window curtain were visible. But
Ann needed nothing more to tell her that this was a girl of
breath-taking beauty. Even the impatience that was so evident on her
face did not mar her loveliness, and the slim white hand complimented
it. She was as exquisite as a china doll.

Ling, who had been regarding the girl with more than ordinary interest,
exclaimed, "Pretty as a flyin' hawk, ain't she?"

The girl evidently heard these words--there was nothing subdued about
Ling's voice--and hastily redrew the curtain.

"Ah! Here comes the jedge."

Colin was hatless and the wind tousled his fair hair. He was past
twenty-five but probably had not yet reached his thirtieth birthday, and
he walked tall and straight as a young man should.

Again Ann had a strong feeling that she had met this man not once but
many times.

"Howdy, Jedge," Ling boomed.

"Oh, hello there, Mr. Stewart," Colin smiled as he came to them and
shook the hand Ling extended.

"Want you should meet my wife, Jedge. Ann, this is Jedge Colin
Campbell."

Colin bowed, and Ann blushed because she could not remember when a man
had extended such a courtesy. Fortunately, Ling distracted Colin's
attention.

"I'd as soon split this ten with you, Jedge."

"No, thank you, Mr. Stewart," Colin declined, laughing.

"Name's Lingo--Ling fer short. I just wanted to see if you was as fair
and honest as I thought you were. You are," Ling explained.

Colin grinned. "I'm glad I passed the test," he said. "And I hope the
citizens of Denbury and Buckshot counties will agree with you at the
next election."

Ling was anxious to get onto a really interesting subject. "Speaking of
Buckshot County," he said, "do you like to hunt? An' if you like to hunt
have you ever been to Hobbs Creek?"

"I love to hunt, though I've done very little of it since I was a boy.
And I've never been to Hobbs Creek."

"Then come! Stay on the trace after you leave Wetherly and you can't
miss. We got bucks in our woods as'll make the biggest one on these
river flats look piddlin' as a yearlin' fawn."

"What else do you have, Mr.--Ling?"

"Bears, catamounts, foxes, turkeys. Name it and we got it."

They were off on the enraptured conversation of two men who share a
common enthusiasm. Ann waited patiently, watching the judge as he
talked, looking for some clue that would tell her why she felt she had
seen him before. Suddenly they were all startled by the sound of a very
annoyed girlish voice calling, "Colin! Really!" They turned in the
direction from which the voice came and saw the beautiful young lady
staring out of the window of the coach, her blue eyes flashing.

The judge looked contrite. "Oh, Jeannie! I'm sorry. I got to talking
with Ling Stewart here about bears and such, and I'm afraid I forgot
that you were going to be waiting for me."

"I noticed that."

"I'll be right with you, Jeannie." To Ling he said, extending his hand,
"I'll come to Hobbs Creek early next week for sure." Ushering the
Stewarts towards the coach, he called to Jeannie, "I want you to meet
some friends of mine."

"Another time if you don't mind." Jeannie's smile was pure ice as she
slammed the door of the coach and signaled to the coachmen. As the
magnificent equipage disappeared around a corner, Ann glanced at the
judge's distressed face and decided that Jeannie's heart was pure
china.




  CHAPTER II

  Colin


By mid-afternoon the next day, Colin disposed of his final case which
involved a two-hundred-and-twenty-pound sailor who had allegedly stolen,
of all things, a set of crochet hooks and a half-finished antimacassar
to which they were attached. With an inward sigh of relief he went into
his chambers, took off his judicial robe and sat down at his desk. Going
through his mail, he found a note in his father's precise script.

    Colin, I have news of the greatest importance and must see you
    some time today. Ralph Campbell II

Colin tucked the note into his pocket. His father was not in the habit
of making mountains out of molehills. He would stop off to visit with
him at Quail Wings this afternoon on his way to the Dare's.

Before leaving the courthouse, he checked to make sure that the tiny
pasteboard box was in the pocket of his topcoat. The box contained a
garnet brooch, a peace offering, by no means the first he had tendered
in the last three months, to atone for his responsibility for
yesterday's quarrel. It _was_ his fault. He had admitted that last
night. He had known Jeannie was to be there waiting for him. But when
anything interested him, and the Stewarts did, he devoted himself to it
so wholeheartedly that he forgot everything else. Jeannie knew that. Of
course he had apologized. She had answered snappishly that he had no
right to keep her waiting while he exchanged pleasantries with his
hill-billy friends. Then she had made a remark which he interpreted to
mean that it was Ann Stewart, rather than an interest in hunting, that
had kept him so long in conversation. When he made an angry retort, she
had promptly denied that she had ever even thought such a thing. The
quarrel might have been shrugged off if there hadn't been so many
disagreements lately.

Once more, Colin tried to reason it away. He had been working very hard
lately; he had been very much preoccupied with the growing tension
between North and South--doubtless he hadn't been the pleasantest of
companions. His imagination often ran away with him and probably he had
been too quick to give a double meaning to an innocuous remark. At any
rate, he must try a little harder to please his fiance.

He left the courthouse and strode towards the rig that awaited him,
grinning suddenly at the sight of the middle-aged bay gelding standing
patiently between the shafts of the trap. The sedate Dusty was not his
notion of a proper horse. Still, he furnished a wholly proper means of
transportation for the judge of Denbury Court.

As soon as they were out of Denbury on the River Road, Colin wrapped
the reins around the whipstock and let Dusty set his own pace. Every
morning that court was in session Dusty took him there and every night
returned him to Quail Wings. He knew both his duty and the road and he
could be trusted. Submerged in his own thoughts, Colin sat up straight
and looked about him only when they came to Hilliard Thorne's Thornhill
and the first view of the Alleghenies.

The sight calmed him, as it had calmed and comforted him for as long as
he could remember. Plantations such as Thornhill and Quail Wings
represented man's genius for accomplishment. But the power of God
dwarfed human effort just as the most majestic temples raised to Him
were puny compared with these cathedrals He had created. No man could
look at them and lack faith.

Quail Wings, now visible in the foreground, was perfectly set off by a
low ridge that prevented any view of the mountains. That was as it
should be. The plantation and all it connoted had no kinship with the
mountains and what they represented. Built well back from the river,
with shining glazed windows and huge stone chimneys at either end, the
house had an appearance of great age. Yet it was far from ancient.
Colin's paternal grandfather, forced to leave the Tidewater because
wasteful agriculture had ruined his plantation, had copied the house he
left behind and modified it only as the more rugged western climate
demanded. The house at Tidewater had, in turn, been a copy of the
ancestral home in England. Nearing it, Colin felt the warmth that always
flooded him at the sight of this beloved home.

Of his own accord, Dusty swung into the drive lined with poplars and
broke into a phlegmatic trot as Colin leaped from the trap. Dusty would
go on to the stables where one of the boys would take care of him.
Admitted into the house by William, the doorman, Colin made his way down
the hall to the study which in recent years had become a refuge for his
father.

In his mid-seventies, Ralph Campbell looked with haughty disdain upon
the effete younger generation. He could, he declared loudly and often,
ride better, shoot straighter, dance longer and more gracefully, and
drink more whiskey than either of his sons or, for that matter, anyone
else's. There was no foundation whatever for the first three statements;
the old man was short of breath, red of face, and almost apoplectic when
excited. In addition, he was subject to fainting spells that were
causing both Dr. McDermott and his family much concern. But there was no
question whatever about the latter boast. These days, the elder Campbell
was seldom without a glass in his hand and a bottle at his side.
However, no amount of drinking ever left a noticeable effect. Colin
knocked on the closed door and heard his father say, "Who is it?"

"Colin."

"Come in, boy."

Colin entered softly, partly out of respect for his father and partly
because the room always impressed him. On three walls were book shelves
filled with titles ranging from _The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius_ in
Latin to the latest treatises on crop and animal husbandry. The fourth
wall was given solely to the portrait of Edith Campbell, and as always
happened when he entered the study, Colin's eyes sought his dead
mother's image.

That she had been lovely was obvious; no artist could have put such
beauty down on canvas if it had not been present for him to capture. Her
blond hair was piled high on her head with a stray ringlet, probably the
artist's touch, curled demurely about her right ear. Her features were
delicate, almost fragile, but with a marked inner strength. Her eyes
were gentle, but they held depth and perception. This portrait and his
father's rare references were all that Colin knew of his mother. She had
died when he was a few months old from the after-effects of his birth.

Colin turned to face his father who, as usual, sat behind the desk.
Ralph Campbell's face, though flushed and aged now, mirrored what he had
been when young. His hair was iron-grey, but it had been very dark. He
was bushy-browed, firm of jaw, proud, intelligent and stubborn. Colin
noted the half-empty bottle and the partially filled glass on the desk,
but, though he was sure that excess in both food and drink had a direct
connection with his father's ill health, he said nothing. Nobody had
ever made this proud old man do anything he didn't feel like doing and
nobody was going to start now.

"I'm glad you're here, Colin." Ralph Campbell tapped a folded paper on
the desk. "I've just had a letter from Macklyn. He has resigned his
commission and is coming home with Betsie and the children before
Christmas."

Colin was stunned. Macklyn, his senior by a dozen years, held a
colonel's rank in the United States Army and had devoted himself to a
military career as wholeheartedly as Colin had embraced the law.
"Resigned! Why?" he said.

"As a loyal Southerner, he will not serve under the command of Abraham
Lincoln," his father answered. Colin thought that Julius Caesar might
have referred to some barbaric Gallic chieftain in the same contemptuous
tone. "Why else?"

"I think he's being very foolish," Colin said firmly.

"Foolish?" the elder Campbell bristled. "Foolish, when these, these,
scallywag Yankees are plotting in every evil way to humble the South and
reduce her to servitude? Do you believe a Campbell should continue to
serve an army that will be hurled against the South when those money-mad
schemers think the time is ripe?"

"Be reasonable, Father. The South is not without its money-mad schemers,
some of whom see secession as the perfect way to wiggle out of their
debts up north."

Ralph Campbell ignored this remark. "The South has conceded all she can
and retain honor. These blasted Yankees need to be taught their places."

Colin sighed. They had been over this same ground many times before, and
Ralph Campbell had not yielded an inch. He would not yield now, and
further argument would solve nothing. But Colin decided grimly that he
wouldn't yield either. Despite the secession fever that was rampant in
South Carolina and rising fast in other states, a few cool heads and a
few decisions based on common sense might yet keep the Union together.

His father looked at him searchingly. "Well?"

"What do you expect me to say?"

"Where do you stand?"

"You know very well--not with secession and certainly not with war."

"But if war comes?"

"If war comes--I don't know," Colin said slowly. "I don't know."

Ralph Campbell sat in silence. Colin had never before admitted the
possibility that his devotion to the Union, his belief that slavery
should be abolished, his conviction that the South must eventually build
its economy on free labor were stronger than his love for his family,
his region, his state. The time for argument had ended.

"You think I am unreasonable," Ralph Campbell said quietly. "I think you
are without feeling. If events continue as they have been going, there
won't be room for both of us at Quail Wings."

Father and son gazed at each other across the desk. "You are asking me
to take a stand on a situation that may never arise," Colin said
finally. "I hope to God it doesn't."

The father gave way. "I hope not," he muttered, lowering his eyes.

Colin turned and left the room.

Colin was in no mood to patch up a lover's quarrel as he rode his
favorite stallion, Robin, through the autumn twilight to Jeannie Dare's.
His thoughts were on his father's words, "There won't be room for both
of us at Quail Wings."

Whenever he had thought of his future with Jeannie--and he had thought
of it less and less frequently in the three months since her return from
school in Baltimore, he admitted--he had envisioned a life at Quail
Wings. Now with Macklyn and his family coming home to stay, with two
like-minded adversaries in the house, perhaps he needed a roof of his
own.

But where? Quail Wings was his home and he loved it, but he had no
particular love for Denbury and its society. He loved his work; he would
not want to leave that, even though he realized that the problems it
dealt with were only the petty differences of insignificant people. They
did not touch on the affairs of the high and mighty--gentlemen did not
take their differences to court. The lowly dared not approach it. No
Negro had ever brought his troubles to Denbury Courthouse. The freeman
did not expect justice in the South. The slave was not legally entitled
to it. Although it reached only some of the people and then only their
superficial problems, justice was worthy of any man's service.

The two things that bound him to Denbury were his work and Jeannie.
Jeannie! As her image rose before his eyes, he realized that he was sure
of nothing. Jeannie, too, had envisioned life with him at Quail Wings as
mistress of the finest plantation for miles around. Colin felt suddenly
and strongly that much of her feeling for him was bound up in this
vision.

As Robin turned in at the driveway to Dare's Landing, Colin felt again
for the little pasteboard box. He had thought of it as a peace offering,
but in his present state of mind it seemed more a parting gift.

After giving Robin over to a stableboy, he hesitated a moment before
climbing the front steps and lifting the brass knocker on the massive
door.

"Is Miss Jeannie at home?" he asked the colored houseboy who answered to
his knock.

"No, suh. Miss Jeannie gone callin'."

"Is Mr. Tom at home?"

"'Scuse me, suh."

He disappeared and returned a moment later. "Come in, suh." He escorted
Colin down the hall to the study. Tom Dare, who had been working at his
desk, rose with his hand extended when Colin came in. He was a man who
would command a second glance in any crowd. His face was ugly and yet
not unattractive. It was a misshapen face--misshapen in the manner of a
bulldog's. His features were set, like a bulldog's, into a pugnacious
expression. His eyes were ordinarily expressionless and seldom offered
the slightest hint about his thoughts.

Almost forty years ago, with two hundred pounds in his money belt
bequeathed by a thrifty merchant father, Tom Dare had sailed from
England to make his fortune in America. He had landed in Richmond, but
found little there to consume that restless, driving energy that was to
dominate his whole life.

Scenting opportunity in the back lands, Tom discovered as soon as he
arrived that his nose had not led him astray. These planters, whose
fields produced more lavishly than the lands at Tidewater, had to
transport their crops to Richmond before they could even hope to ship
them. The cost was always high and sometimes prohibitive. Tom walked
every inch of the Connicon, discovered the two reefs that prevented the
more shallow-draft ocean going ships from ascending to a point well west
of Denbury, and with the help of two slaves, he literally ripped them
out with brute force. That was a bare beginning.

He bypassed Denbury--from the border it was still five hundred yards to
the river--and chose a quiet harbor on the Connicon itself. He used
every farthing of his own capital, and when that was exhausted he
begged, borrowed, cajoled, and intimidated. He drove his slaves hard
enough to rouse talk among the planters, but he drove himself harder.
When his first small wharf and warehouse were finally finished, he
persuaded the skipper of the _Jeannie_, a small and decrepit ship that
seldom had a full load, to come up the Connicon. Then he announced to
all his neighbors that he was ready to accept whatever they might bring
him and that he would pay them at Tidewater prices after the cargo was
sold.

His first clients were small and struggling planters who had always felt
the strain of paying for transportation to port and then across the
Atlantic. By sheer coincidence, both tobacco and cotton were in short
supply that year and Tom's clients earned such fabulous profits than
others flocked in. Because Tom's business acumen was outstanding, his
clients continued to prosper and when he was financially able to do so,
he expanded. Now, it was rumored, his wealth exceeded that of even the
most affluent planters.

He said, "Jeannie's gone to see Laura Talmadge. She should return soon."

She had known he was coming, Colin thought, and he tried to mask his
irritation. Tom saw through the mask.

"During my life, Colin, I've found the answer to a few riddles but woman
is one riddle I've never understood."

Colin grinned. "I'll wait if I may."

"You are very welcome. Have you read the newspapers since the election?
War seems nearer with every passing hour."

"You believe that, too, do you?" Colin asked.

"You mean you think there is some hope?"

"That depends on the new president."

"You don't expect anything but trouble from that gorilla," Tom Dare
growled. "Have you read any of his speeches?"

"All that I have seen printed. He seems like an eminently sensible and
reasonable fellow for a Republican."

"Sensible? Why, he talks like a raving lunatic with all this business of
a nation not being able to exist half slave and half free. It's existed
perfectly well up to now. Not, mind you, that I don't believe all this
talk of secession isn't lunacy, too. But the states that are seething
with propaganda will leave the Union sooner or later, I'm sure of that.
There are too many fools in responsible positions, North and South. Some
idiot will bring about an outright act of war and--" Tom Dare shrugged
and moodily continued, "that will be a black day for the South. She may
fight to the last man, but she cannot possibly win."

"Why?" Colin could not help feeling a little angry, although he held the
same opinion.

Tom Dare laughed. "Don't take me wrong. Man for man, the Southerner is
more than equal to the Northerner, though I question local opinion that
he's five times as good. Even if he were, this will not be a war of men
alone. It will take factories, money, railways, ships--and in these the
North is way ahead of us. The South may fight for as long as two years
with the resources at her command and those that ingenuity may create.
But what will happen when everything's exhausted?"

"Much as I dislike to admit it, I agree with you," Colin sighed.

"What will you do when war comes?" Tom Dare asked suddenly.

Colin gave a harsh laugh. "That's the second time I've been asked that
question today. I have no answer for it."

"I trust I'm interrupting nothing too momentous." Jeannie had come in so
silently that neither man had heard. She stood in the open doorway, her
cheeks rosy from the autumn wind. Colin felt a sudden return of the old
warm feeling and he knew again, as he had known in the beginning, that
she was one of the most completely beautiful women he had ever seen or
ever would see. Her lips were parted in a half-smile, but her eyes were
teasing. "I'm sorry to be late, Colin."

He said gallantly, "You are forgiven."

"My dashing knight! I'll be down as soon as I've tidied up a bit. Don't
be completely tiresome, Father."

"I'll try not to, darling."

As Tom Dare droned on about a shipment sent to England, Colin's mind
harked back to the day he had really become aware of Jeannie Dare.

Riding quietly a trail bordered by trees which led to a clearing beside
the Connicon, Colin had heard the discord of an altercation. He halted
his mount at the edge of the clearing and looked out upon thirteen white
boys, all sons of tradesmen or artisans in Denbury, yelling at and
dancing around a small and frightened colored boy whom Colin recognized
as the son of Magador, Ellis Xavier's top field hand.

No harm was done and none would have been done. The white boys had
merely found someone they could terrify and were taking fullest
advantage of their sport. At Colin's sharp reprimand they stopped
yelling, exchanged sheepish glances and departed towards Denbury. Then,
"Bravo, St. George! The dragon is vanquished!"

Colin looked toward the edge of the clearing and saw a most beautiful
girl. Whenever Betsie, Macklyn's wife, came home for a visit, she'd
indulged in a great deal of matchmaking on Colin's behalf. Her taste was
excellent and many of the girls were lovely, but not even the exquisite
Jane Carleton, yearned after and dreamed of by every eligible young man
for miles around, could compare with the girl who had somehow
materialized in this lonely place. Tall, slender and delicately made,
her hair was almost silver in its fairness. She looked somehow like a
moonbeam who had ventured into broad daylight.

Then he realized who she was and gasped, "Jeannie Dare!"

She teased him, "I had no wish to frighten you, Colin."

"You--you've grown up!"

"I'm almost eighteen."

"I haven't seen you for--for--"

"For at least a year," she supplied. "Father decided to hide me away at
Miss Darnley's in Baltimore."

"I must say hiding agrees with you," Colin said recklessly. "May I
escort you home?"

All that summer he saw her often, as often as he possibly could. Until
that time, so intent had he been on his work, so eager in those first
years out of law school to learn all there was to know about the
practical ways in which the law could solve the tangles people wove for
themselves, that he had allowed no woman to disturb him seriously. That
summer, for the first time he was powerless, helplessly drawn to this
slim, silver-fair girl. He, who had hoarded his leisure for reading or
riding, found himself present at every ball. At first he had pretended
to himself that his attendance was mere sociability. But the pounding of
his blood at the sight of Jeannie's face in a crowded room made a sham
of his pretense. Jeannie, more experienced than he for all her youth,
saw through it before he did. It was no surprise to her when one evening
as they walked in the garden at Dare's Landing he took her in his arms
and between feverish kisses murmured brokenly, "I love you, Jeannie
darling--marry me--"

Before she returned to Baltimore for her final year at Miss Darnley's,
they were engaged.

He hadn't expected to live through the time while she was gone, so
impatient was he for her return. Now she had been home for three months.
Her nearness was enchanting, but his helplessness in her presence was
gone; and question lingered where none had ever been.

Had she changed? He didn't think so. She was as beautiful as ever, as
charming--when she had her own way completely. He had been so busy, he
thought ruefully, straightening out other people's problems, that he had
neglected self-knowledge. He had been as blindly infatuated as any
schoolboy. She was young; life still had much to teach her. Marriage
would give depth and understanding to their relationship. And yet--

"And do you agree that when war comes, cotton will be a major factor?"
Tom Dare concluded a lengthy discourse on the Southern economy.

Colin started. "I'm sorry. I'm afraid I didn't hear your question."

Tom grinned fleetingly. "It isn't important. Ah, here's Jeannie!"

She entered, radiant in a simple white gown. As both men rose, Tom said,
"I've work in the store. You young people remain here if you wish."

When he had gone, Jeannie turned expectantly to Colin. In an instant,
she was in his arms and he was lost, his lips on hers. He was in love,
he told himself as Jeannie gently drew away, and nothing else mattered.

"Colin," she said, "Colin darling, let's stop quarreling. I know I've
been silly, and you haven't been very nice either. Let's stop, both of
us."

Colin smiled into her eyes and then bent to kiss her cheek. "I have
something here," he said, drawing the little pasteboard box out of his
pocket, "which I intended to convey the same message."

Jeannie opened the box as eagerly as a child. "Ooh, what a beauty! And
how sweet of you!" She threw her arms around his neck to bestow a
childish kiss of gratitude. But there was nothing childish or playful in
Colin's response. Closer and closer he held her against himself, driven
by a sudden agonizing longing. Neither could tell how long they had been
locked in silent transport when Jeannie came to her senses and struggled
free.

Breathless and disheveled, she faced him from a safe distance. "I would
like you to kiss me like that every day, every hour of every day. But
not until we are married."

"If we were--" Just now, at this moment, it seemed the answer to
everything. "Jeannie, we've waited long enough."

Her eyes sparkled as they met his. "Do you really mean it?"

"I really mean it. It's just that--"

"Just what, darling?"

He was about to explain his differences with his father, the tension at
Quail Wings, but he was afraid to break the spell. He heard himself say
instead, "Macklyn and Betsie are coming home to stay. There won't be
room for all of us at Quail Wings. I must find a house for you and me."

"Then do!" she exclaimed. "Any old house anywhere! It doesn't matter
just so both of us are in it!"

When Colin left and stepped into the outside darkness, he carried with
him the longing that had possessed him earlier. But as he made his way
home on Robin it slowly ebbed away into the black night. The wave of
ecstasy on which he had floated seemed of another age and time, with
another person. He saw in imagination, as he had seen so many times in
reality, a pouting and petulant Jeannie who was displeased with him. And
the words, "Any old house anywhere! It doesn't matter just so both of us
are in it!" seemed completely incompatible with that vision.




  CHAPTER III

  Hobbs Creek


As he walked briskly up the lonesome little valley Robin's shod hooves
left clear-cut tracks in two inches of new snow, and the cold wind that
knifed down the valley honed his always high spirits to a razor edge. He
wanted to run, and because Colin held him in he danced skittishly from
side to side.

Few trees grew in the valley, but the upper slopes on both sides were
heavily forested, largely with hardwoods that had shed their leaves and
stood gaunt and bare in the wind. Some tall oaks with shriveled leaves
still clinging stubbornly to parent boughs rattled dismally when the
wind shook them. Towards the valley's head, the vivid foliage of a
single great pine contrasted almost shockingly with the late autumn
bleakness all about.

Colin halted to make sure that his rifle, the exquisite 58 Worthington
carbine that had been custom-made for him by Justin Worthington himself,
rode properly in its saddle scabbard. The three lean hounds that
followed him halted with Colin and fixed steady eyes on their master.
They wanted to hunt and knew they had come to the mountains to hunt, but
as yet they had been given no permission to seek game.

Colin slackened the reins and went on, keeping to the trace of which
Ling Stewart had told him. Follow it, Ling had said, and he couldn't
miss Hobbs Creek. Then he need only ask the first person he saw where
the Stewarts lived and Ling--Colin grinned as he remembered--would show
him the jo-darndest best hunting he had ever seen. With his court
calender empty for the next five days and Jeannie on a shopping trip to
Richmond, Colin was on his way to enjoy some of that hunting.

He had some hard thinking to do, too, he told himself. But he couldn't
do it yet; he couldn't force his decisions. They would come of
themselves, as natural and obvious as the sunrise.

Now, as they neared the head of the valley, it dwindled to a mere
shallow ditch on the mountain's slope. Then they left it entirely and
broke out on the summit, a broad plateau that, except for occasional
dips and rises, was as level as the fields at Quail Wings. It was
heavily forested, the massive tree trunks giving mute evidence that the
woodsman's axe was all but unknown in this place. The only trees felled
were those that would have blocked the trace.

Deer tracks were everywhere, and in places deer had so beaten and
trampled the snow that it was as though a herd of cattle had passed.
Crossing and criss-crossing were the plainly marked trails of bears,
wolves, bob cats, foxes, turkeys, wild pigs that were doubtless the
feral offspring of tame animals, and small game so numerous that there
were few stretches of snow in which some wild animal had not left the
story of its passing.

Colin's interest heightened. He had avoided hunting in this section
because, according to rumor in Denbury, the settlers were a hostile lot
and had, in any case, already killed most of the wild game. But nowhere
had Colin seen more evidence of wild creatures. He was so intent on
tracks in the snow that they entered the clearing before he was aware of
it. Colin raised his head and his eyes widened in surprise.

Originally the clearing had been natural, one of the open meadows, or
parks, that are found in all forests. But some human with the perception
of an artist, and a prodigious will to work, had shaped it to his own
desires. Retaining the natural symmetry of the surrounding forest, he
had removed all dead and dying trees, all stumps, and all decaying
matter so that the impression remaining, even in winter, was one of
abundant and enduring life with no hint of death. A graceful weeping
willow rose from the only knoll in the entire clearing where such a tree
would not have been out of character. An orchard had been planted on a
little slope opposite the house, doubtless so that the people who had
once lived here might see the trees when they were in bloom. There was a
stable with six boarded windows--stalls for six cattle or horses--and
connected with it a barn for hay and grain storage. Attached to the
stable was a small paddock for the bull or stallion and a larger one for
cows or mares. There were two smaller buildings that might have been
chicken houses or pig pens. Six stately silver maples, probably
imported from the lowlands, provided shade for the larger paddock.

The house was built on the far side of the clearing, near the forest's
edge, and designed so artfully that, like the trees, it seemed to belong
exactly where it was. Perhaps half the size of the mansion at Quail
Wings, it was built of a rosy brick with a grey shingled roof and
shutters that had probably been imported from the sawmill at Wetherly.
The once-white paint on the shutters was fading, but even the dinginess
of fading paint could not detract to any marked extent from an over-all
beauty and harmony. Even the stone chimneys at either end which began at
ground level and thrust above the ridge pole had no harsh angles. The
house faced the east, to receive the first of the morning sun. All the
windows were boarded.

For a full three minutes, Colin sat entranced. Never had he seen a house
that captured his heart more completely. It must be his. And Jeannie's,
he amended. He could so easily visualize his own life in this house that
somehow the house gave color and shape to life with Jeannie. Surrounded
by so much calm and beauty, surely she would drop the airs of the
spoiled beauty and become the Jeannie of his imaginings.

He considered the practical problems. The house was some fifteen miles
from Denbury, about twelve miles from Quail Wings. With either Robin or
Pegasus, his other stallion, he could reach Quail Wings in a little more
than an hour and pick up Dusty there. If he had a very strenuous load
of work or the weather were especially bad, he could spend the night in
Denbury. As he rode slowly up the drive, Colin felt that at last he had
come home.

He dismounted, tied Robin to a tree, and with the three hounds trailing
him, walked slowly around the house. Coming to the west side, his eyes
lighted with pleasure. At the second story level, supported by a
three-sided stone wall whose interior probably served as a root cellar,
was a many-windowed room which, due to the slope that lay beneath it,
rose above the level of the surrounding trees. Whoever built the house
had contrived to greet the sun as it rose and bid it farewell as it set.
The least Colin knew about him now was that he was an artist who had
faith in time and the fulfillment of time. Whoever he was, Colin warmed
to him.

Returning to the front of the house, Colin mounted the steps and tried
the great white door. When it yielded, he brushed the snow from his
boots, entered a hall and strode down in to a spacious drawingroom
occupied at the present time only by the ghosts of draped furniture. In
the dim light he could see little save the massive fireplace. But he
could feel the love and affection that had been expended here, as though
the house were a living thing.

Because he suddenly felt like an intruder, Colin stole out of the house,
shut the door and mounted Robin. His heart sang as he continued down the
trace. He had fallen in love with a house! This house represented so
much that he valued, and he was convinced that life here with Jeannie
would take on these values. A sudden chill crossed his heart as it
occurred to him that the place might not be for sale. But he banished
the thought. It _had_ to be.

Within a few minutes he had reached another clearing. It was in a
shallow valley, or rather the shallow upper reaches of what doubtless
became a deep valley. The clearing was divided by an unfrozen creek that
looked oddly black in contrast to the snow on either bank. A sturdy
wooden bridge spanned the creek, and on the other side stood a cabin
that was part old and part new. Three wings had been added to a one-room
central structure, one so new that the peeled logs from which it was
built still looked raw. Rows of split and stacked wood stood within easy
reach of the door. The front windows were glazed, but the window Colin
saw on the side seemed to be covered with scraped deer skin. A curl of
blue smoke rising from the stone chimney was snatched away by the wind.

Some distance back from the cabin stood a log barn, adjoined by an
enclosed pasture. A few sheep pawed diffidently in the snow and nibbled
the frozen grasses they uncovered. Chickens scurried about another small
outbuilding. Pigs grunted in a sty and a red cow munched indifferently
at a hay stack.

As he gazed about him, Colin heard a woman's voice call out, "Judge
Campbell!"

He looked toward the cabin door and recognized standing there the girl
whom he had first met in Denbury Court, Ling Stewart's wife. He had paid
little attention to her then in his other preoccupations, but as he
approached her now he saw that she was beautiful. The shawl that she
had thrown over her simple homespun dress did not conceal the lithe
fullness of her tall figure. Her face, tanned and glowing from the sun
and keen mountain air, was both strong and delicate. "Why, she's a
thoroughbred!" Colin thought in surprise.

As he extended his hand to her, he said, "Do you remember that your
husband invited me to hunt with him? This is the first chance I've had
to accept. I hope I don't come at the wrong time."

"You're most welcome, Judge Campbell," she answered, smiling. Colin's
wonder mounted. Most hill people mispronounced their words in such a way
that it was often difficult to understand them. Mrs. Stewart's
enunciation was perfect and she was as gracious as any hostess in a
manor on the Connicon.

Two little boys, one about six and the other perhaps three, crowded
around their mother and then ran towards Colin's hounds. Mrs. Stewart
called them back to her side. They halted, the older boy looking frankly
at Colin while the younger kept his eyes on the hounds.

"Jeffrey, this is Judge Campbell."

"I'm delighted to know you, sir."

"And I to make your acquaintance, young man."

Colin shook hands with Jeffrey, and Ann turned to her younger son,
saying, "Lingo, this is Judge Campbell."

"Please 't'meetcha," and there was more defiance than shyness in the
child's voice and manner. Ann's face grew stern.

"Lingo!"

"Please!" Colin laughed. "I thought he acquitted himself very well."

Ann sighed. "I often believe that cleaning the Augean stables was
simplicity itself compared with teaching manners to healthy boys."

Colin glanced sharply at her. Who had taught her of Hercules and the
tasks assigned to that mythological hero?

Unnoticing, she asked Colin, "May they play with your hounds? For the
moment we have no dog, and the youngsters love them."

"I'm sure my hounds will love them, too."

The children raced happily forward, and the hounds waited with welcoming
tails for the frolic to come. Colin watched them for a moment before he
turned to speak to Ann again. He was surprised to find that next to her
now stood a white-bearded and gaunt old man, motionless, with his face
cast down. He had evidently come up silently from around the corner of
the cabin.

"This is my father, Enos Pollard," Ann said.

Colin was about to extend his hand in greeting when he noticed that the
old man had not even looked at him, had not, in fact, taken his eyes off
the ground.

"Father, will you please put Judge Campbell's horse in the box stall and
feed him?" Ann asked.

Only then did the old man raise his visage briefly. Colin caught a
glimpse of his eyes. They were mindless as stones. What horror, Colin
wondered, had destroyed the intelligence that must have once lit his
face?

"Please come in," Ann invited Colin. "Ling will be delighted to see
you."

She stood aside and Colin entered a large room that was obviously the
center of the house. One outer wall was given entirely to a huge stone
fireplace, with an oven at one side and various pot and kettle hooks
arranged to swing in and out. Cooking utensils depended from wooden pegs
that must have been inserted with pliable mortar, and there was a
homemade cabinet for table wear. A long table flanked by wooden chairs
dominated the center of the room, and against the far wall stood a
spacious couch covered with tanned deerskins. At one end of the couch
Colin was amazed to see shelves crammed from floor to ceiling with
books. On the opposite end was a gun rack holding four rifles, with an
empty space for a fifth. Two pistols and two powder horns dangled from a
set of deer antlers. The gun rack, elaborately carved and with
horseshoes bent to fit the rifles, had cost someone a great deal of
knife and metal work. The skin of a black bear served as a rug in front
of the couch.

Colin lingered in front of the bookshelves. Plato's _Republic_ was
wedged between Gibbon's _Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_ and
Macaulay's _History of England_. He tried to keep surprise from his
voice as he said, "You have a fine library here."

"It is my father's library," Ann answered. "But I am the only one to
read it now."

Colin was filled with curiosity. What were this beautiful young woman
and her father doing here? What had happened to the mind that once
studied Gibbon and Macaulay? How did she come to be married to an
amiable woodsman who could neither read nor write? He would like to know
the answers to all these, but her tone of voice precluded questions.

"I'm sorry Ling isn't here, Judge Campbell."

"Please call me Colin."

"All right, Colin." She spoke without a trace of self-consciousness.
"I'm Ann."

"A proud and lovely name and most befitting."

"Thank you!" she laughed. "Ling's gone hunting, as usual. But he should
be here soon."

As though her words possessed some magic which was able to reach out to
her wandering husband and bring him to her side, a moment later Ling
entered the house.

"Why, hello, Jedge! Mighty glad to see you here!"

"Hello, Ling!" Colin's greeting was equally warm. "I thought I'd accept
your invitation to do a little hunting at Hobbs Creek."

"Sure 'nough tickled you did! Them your hounds my kids is playin' with?"

"Yes, they are."

"Any good?"

"As good as any deer hounds I know."

"We'll try 'em," Ling promised.

In one hand he carried the rifle that was missing from the rack and down
his back dangled a turkey with its head shot off. Blood still oozed from
the mangled neck. When Ling laid his turkey on the table, Colin was
watching Ann. He saw on her face revulsion and disgust, but he also saw
resignation. Probably she had long since ceased trying to explain that
turkeys with bloody heads had no place in the house, least of all on the
dining table. But just then her father and little Lingo came in and all
she said was, "Take the turkey outside and dress it, Dad, will you?"

Enos caught up the turkey and Lingo remained at his side as they left.
Ling replaced the rifle in the rack and turned to Colin. "Tell you what,
Jedge. It's a bit late in the day to go out huntin' now. Spend the night
here and we'll go out at dawn in the mornin'. Meantime, you and I can go
visit some of the folks on Hobbs Creek before dinner. I told 'em about
you and the way you put down that low livin' Bodine. They've all been
hornswoggled by him and they'd be mighty proud to meet the man that
showed him a trick or two."

"That sounds fine, Ling, but I don't want to put you people to all that
trouble. I brought my camping gear with me, and a night out under the
stars would be a real pleasure to me."

But Ling wouldn't hear of it, and his invitation was cordially seconded
by Ann. Soon the two men had started up the valley and into the woods on
their way to the neighbors', the free-striding Ling shortening his step
to suit Colin's. At half a mile's distance, they emerged into another
clearing.

"Darnley Hamlin's place," Ling explained as they walked toward the log
house. "Bedloe an' Tracey, his brothers, lives with him and his passel
of young 'uns."

As they approached the house a young man of about twenty came out to
meet them. He was as tall as Ling but more heavily built. His hair was
red and, like Ling, he was cleanshaven. He moved with the same easy
woodsman's grace, and his grin was contagious.

"Hi!" Ling called, and when they were near enough he said proudly,
"Tracey Hamlin, meet Jedge Campbell."

"Right glad to know you, Jedge." Tracey's handshake was warm and his
eyes spoke their own welcome. "Come say howdy to the rest."

Colin met Darnley and Bedloe, Tracey's older brothers. He was introduced
to Charity, Darnley's competent wife. He warmed to the six children who
stared at him, ran into another room, peered around the door jamb and
giggled. He accepted with pleasure a mug of hard cider.

To his surprise, the talk soon turned to politics. He would have thought
these men as isolated in their thinking as they were in their domain,
but they were aware of all but the very latest developments in the
increasingly bitter struggle between the North and the South. About most
recent events, they questioned him keenly, phrasing their questions so
as to elicit from him an idea of his own opinions. Once they felt sure
that he did not share the views of the planter aristocracy, they
declared their own views outspokenly.

"Do you keep slaves?" Darnley Hamlin had asked him.

"My father has over a hundred at Quail Wings, our plantation. On my
twenty-first birthday he gave me two as my personal slaves, two of the
best he had. The next day I gave them their freedom and asked them if
they would care to work for me. They gladly agreed and they are with me
still."

"What did your father say to that?" Bedloe had put in bluntly.

"He thought I'd lost my mind, and we've been arguing about it ever
since."

They were not only against the idea of slavery, believing a man should
"do fer hisself," Colin discovered; they also had a regional pride which
had been affronted by the slave-owning lowlanders. "Nobody goin' to
ketch us fightin' so them easterners can live like kings with all their
slaves waitin' on 'em," Darnley said. "Them easterners has been bossin'
the whole state of Virginny long enough, grabbin' all the money there is
fer schools and roads and," slyly, "courthouses. We got to go clear to
Wetherly to find a school and clear to the next county when one of us
gits into a little ruckus with the law." He winked at Ling.

Later Colin asked them, "Putting aside all your differences with the
east, what would you do if worst came to worst and federal troops
entered the state?"

"I reckon we'd fight right enough," Darnley answered, "or first thing
you know they'd be takin' over Hobbs Creek."

As he left with Ling to call on Watt Sackett, it seemed to Colin that
the opinions of the brothers Hamlin were more reasonable than those of
his own father and brother.

    *    *    *    *    *

That night after a dinner of venison steaks, baked potatoes and
blueberry pie, Ann's father and the children went to bed. Ann and Colin
settled themselves before the fire while Ling went outside to bed down
the cattle.

Colin turned thoughtfully to Ann. "I passed an empty house in a clearing
on my way in," he said. "It's on top of a knoll, perhaps half- or
three-quarters of a mile from Hobbs Creek. It's one of the loveliest
houses I've ever seen. Do you know who owns it?"

"My father, Enos Pollard," she said quietly.

"Your father!" Ling could not hide his astonishment.

"That's right. He designed it and had it built according to his design."
Then she added softly, "He was not always as he is."

"Forgive me if I have offended you."

"You haven't," she answered serenely. "May I ask why you are interested
in my father's place?"

"I'm going to be married as soon as my fiance and I can find a house of
our own. I love that house. Is it for sale?"

"It's a long way to Denbury."

"I've considered that. I'll leave Dusty, the horse that takes me to and
from court, at my father's house. Robin or Pegasus, my other stallion,
will get me there in an hour or so and I'll pick up Dusty at Quail
Wings. If I'm very busy, I'll spend the night in Denbury, and Jeannie
can always visit her father if she wants to see her Denbury friends."

"Jeannie is your fiance?"

"Yes, the girl who was waiting for me outside the court the day you were
there."

"She is lovely."

"I know that you and she will be the dearest of friends if we move
to--to Campbell Hill."

Ann smiled. "Your new estate already has a name?"

"I hope it will be mine."

"It is for sale, Colin, but might it not be wise to let your Jeannie see
the place before you talk of buying?"

"Of course! But I know she'll love it as I do."

"Then I shall be happy for the two of you."

    *    *    *    *    *

The sun was up when Ling and Colin left the house next morning. Holding
the long rifle that went wherever he did, Ling turned to pull the door
softly shut and drop the latch.

"We'll come back for the hounds later," Ling said softly.

Colin nodded his agreement.

Leading the way down the worn path, Ling walked as gracefully and
precisely as a puma. His stride seemed slow because it was effortless,
and in that domestic setting he was, as any wild animal would have been,
more than a little out of his element. The farm was his, an inheritance
from his father, he had told Colin, but it was evident that Enos
Pollard did most of the work.

They crossed Hobbs Creek on the wooden footbridge and climbed the hill.
Here Ling stopped to look back at the house before he entered the woods.
Reassured that all was well, his relief at turning away was visible. As
soon as the woods closed about him there was no suggestion that he was
out of place. He fitted in as naturally as the wind, Colin thought. The
farm was a convenient home for his family and provided part of his
livelihood, but the forest gave him life.

As they walked along, Colin watched Ling with growing respect. Though a
hunter by profession, he had a philosophy of sorts--a feeling for the
natural order of things which served as his code of ethics. Colin had
seen enough amorality, immorality and just plain meanness in Denbury
Court to appreciate a good man when he met one.

Presently, Ling turned and whispered tensely, "This is it, Jedge."

So fresh and clear in the snow that they couldn't possibly be more than
one-half hour old, the paw marks of a huge bob cat led over the rim of
the knoll. Ling pointed and whispered again, "See that patch of brush,
right 'longside the dead chestnut and mebbe ten feet up the other
slope?"

"I see."

"He's bedded there. Sit tight and I'll show you how to get him."

Silent as a ghost, Ling disappeared. Colin watched the patch of brush
until his eyes ached. Then he saw Ling in the valley, approaching a
snow-covered fallen log on knees and one hand; the other hand carried
his rifle. When he reached the log, he crouched beside it and lifted the
back of his hand to his lips several times in rapid succession.

While Colin watched in puzzlement, the bob cat emerged from the brush,
slowly, cautiously, on the prowl. As it approached the fallen log,
Ling's rifle spoke. The huge cat fell in its tracks.

Colin voiced a shout of admiration. It had taken superb woodsmanship
even to approach the cat without frightening it, but to coax it from its
hiding place--! Recklessly, he plunged down the slope towards the fallen
log.

"That was the finest bit of hunting I have ever seen," he said
breathlessly when he stood at Ling's side.

"T'wasn't that good," Ling grinned. "You take a big old cat like this'n
and he'll lay somethin' aside for rainy day even if his belly's full. I
fooled him. Listen!" Ling put the back of his hand to his lips as he had
done when he crouched by the log. The sound that emerged from behind his
hand was the squeak of a rabbit in distress. "That old bob cat took me
for a bunny rabbit."

Colin threw back his head and laughed uproariously. Later, looking back
on that day, it occurred to him that he hadn't laughed like that for
months.




  CHAPTER IV

  Christmas


From the judge's bench, Colin was all but unaware of his own question,
"What happened then?", and he heard only vaguely Marvin Manley's
statement, "She thrun a rock at my head. Hit me, too."

Colin forced himself out of Hobbs Creek and back into Denbury Court.

"He chased my pig!" Mrs. Vinch shrilled.

Marvin Manley muttered, "T'was rootin' 'neath my chicken coop an' the
hens mighta got out."

"That bitsy thing a chicken coop!" Mrs. Vinch sneered.

"Madam, kindly remain silent until you are addressed by the court,"
Colin said firmly. Then he turned to Marvin Manley and asked, "What did
you do after she hit you with the rock?"

"Caught her up and paddled her hinder."

Colin managed to keep a straight face. "Where was your husband all this
time?" he asked Mrs. Vinch.

"He was in the house--tuk with the toothache."

Marvin Manley gave a sharp laugh. "He was peekin' out the window an'
when he saw me paddlin' away he yelled out, 'By jiminy, Marv, you're a
better man than I am.'"

Colin said curtly, "I asked Mrs. Vinch. Now Mrs. Vinch, do you have a
pen for your pig?"

"Yes, sir."

"Hereafter, you are to keep the animal confined." He turned to Marvin
Manley, "And you are to restrain any further impulses towards violence."

"Ha!" Mrs. Vinch glared at her enemy.

"Unless," Colin amended, "that pig should get out again and you should
have to chase it again and she should hit you with a rock again."

"Ha!" Marvin Manley gloated.

Colin retired to his chambers and took off his robe. Disputes such as
the one just settled were typical of the cases he was called on to
adjudicate. He had never underestimated the importance of these plain
people with their petty problems, for he had always understood that no
problem is insignificant to those involved. But compared to a recent
event, any case that might appear in Denbury Court was as
inconsequential as the buzzing of a fly.

Overriding a majority of the state's people, who were opposed to
secession, and ignoring the legislature, the more fiery of South
Carolina's secessionists had convened at Charleston. Four days ago, on
December 20, 1860, the convention had nullified that provision by which
South Carolina had ratified the United States Constitution just
seventy-two years before and declared that she was once more a free and
independent state.

The thought of secession had dripped glibly from many tongues and
occupied many minds, but it had never seemed more than a dream or a
threat, depending on the viewpoint. It was a satisfying prospect to
some, a dread prospect to others, but always a vague possibility, never
an act to be carried out. However, no thunderbolts had ripped South
Carolina, no plague had stricken her, and no troops had been sent to
suppress what at best was outright rebellion. Long a fantasy, secession
was a reality that was spreading with epidemic speed throughout the
entire South. And most of its supporters managed to delude themselves in
thinking that war would not follow.

Colin put on his topcoat, went into the cold afternoon, trying and
failing to capture the spirit of the season. It was Christmas Eve, but
the only humans who appeared even remotely affected with Christmas
spirit were children.

Riding along on Dusty, Colin considered the evening that was most likely
in store for him. His brother, Macklyn, had arrived today. The subjects
that occupied all adult minds had been scrupulously avoided by Colin and
his father ever since they had come so close to breaking a few weeks
ago. With Macklyn's return, their tacit agreement to keep silent would
be shattered. And judging by his letters, Colin knew that Macklyn was,
if possible, an even more ardent Southerner than his father. He did not
look forward to the evening, delighted as he had always been to see
Macklyn and his wife, Betsie.

Lately when he was depressed, his thoughts turned to Hobbs Creek and,
more particularly, to the lovely house Enos Pollard had built and
abandoned. "Campbell Hill" he had called it when he confidently told Ann
Stewart that he was sure Jeannie would love it as he did. The house had
become for him a symbol of all that his own his seemed to lack these
days--calm, dignity, serenity.

He recalled bitterly the day he had taken Jeannie to see the house. He
had been tense with excitement and eagerness as they approached the
clearing surrounding the house. Now, in retrospect, he knew that Jeannie
had humored him by coming at all. She had burst into giggles when he had
first told her about it. "Colin, you can't be serious about living way
up there with only a few hill-billies and wild animals for company!" But
when she had seen that he was serious, in her womanly wisdom she had
decided to go through the motions of considering it.

She had been impressed in spite of herself. "It is lovely," she said in
surprise as they entered the Pollard clearing. And then, evidently
remembering the woods and the long climb in back of them, she fell
silent. She did not want to encourage Colin in his crazy idea.

"We'll have to go to the Stewarts' first and tell Ann we'd like to go
into the house. Perhaps she'll want to show us around," Colin had said.

"Why doesn't she live in it herself?" Jeannie asked this question with
more petulance than curiosity, for if Ann lived in the house Colin would
not be taking her on this wild goose chase.

"She didn't volunteer the information and I didn't like to ask her.
Certainly there's a strange story there. Ann is obviously an educated
person and her father must have been a man of both taste and means. I
think I told you that he has lost his mind--that may have something to
do with their abandoning the house."

Jeannie shivered. "Spooky!"

"There's nothing at all spooky about Ann. If she had been born and
raised along the Connicon you'd have had to look to your laurels. You'll
see."

"Wasn't she one of the mountaineers you wanted to introduce me to
outside the courthouse one day?" Jeannie asked. "I'm afraid I only
noticed her rather peculiar costume."

The whole morning had been like that. First, there was Jeannie's
amusement at the Stewart's log cabin. "How very quaint!" she had
exclaimed when they first came upon it. "Colin, I'm surprised you don't
want us to build our own little cabin just like this one." Then there
was Jeannie's ill-concealed condescension to Ann. She had not seen the
fine features and graceful gestures. She had not heard the precision of
speech. She had not noticed the books. She had seen only the homespun
dress and the work-roughened hands.

Later as Ann had ushered them into the drawingroom of the Pollard house
Jeannie glanced at the crystal chandeliers and the marble fireplace and
asked Ann, "How can you bear to live in that--uh--hut when you could
live here?"

"Bear it? It is not hardship for me to live in my husband's house."
Ann's cheeks were flushed and she held herself very straight. "In any
case, I couldn't live here," she added quietly.

"Oh! Why not?"

Ann turned away as if she had not heard.

Colin quickly drew Jeannie away into another room. "How can you behave
so?" he asked angrily.

"Sorry," Jeannie answered. "I guess I was trespassing on forbidden
ground. What a sensitive creature for a little mountain goat!"

"Mountain goat! Where are your eyes?"

"Do let up, Colin. I've said I was sorry." And then in an attempt to
placate him she added, "You were right about the house. It's charming.
Let's look at the rest of it."

Colin's eagerness had returned. "Do you like it?" he asked.

"I like it, but really, Colin, do you seriously think we could live
here, so far from everything?"

"It's only a short trip to Wetherly. And Robin can make it to Quail
Wings in a little over an hour."

"Wetherly! That overgrown trading post! And Robin is all right for you,
but what about me? I rode here today to please you, but in a carriage it
would take hours to get to Denbury."

"What is so interesting in Denbury? Silly gossip and teaparties--would
you miss those so much? You could visit your father or stay at Quail
Wings whenever you hankered for that life."

Jeannie reverted to the argument that had never failed her. She threw
her arms around his neck and drew his head down to hers. "Darling,
please! Let's forget the house and think just of us. We can live with
father if there isn't room at Quail Wings--just until we find something
that really suits us."

Colin had been wooden in her arms. He had felt nothing but dull
disappointment and disgust with himself--for having imagined that
Jeannie would share his vision of life together in this house, for
having imagined that she was more than an exceptionally beautiful
butterfly. Life in Denbury was tolerable to him now because he had his
work, his books and his horses. The thought of the idle social round to
which Jeannie would condemn him was suddenly sickening. It was clear to
him that his desire to live in this place had roots he himself had been
unaware of; it grew out of his uneasy position in a planter society with
convictions he did not share and with a leisurely, graceful way of life
which only reminded him of the misery that supported it. He wanted to
live free among other free men.

All this, he knew then, was utterly foreign to Jeannie. Not only
wouldn't she agree with him; she would not even know what he was talking
about if he explained his feelings. And with this knowledge, the
love--belated puppy love it now seemed--he once felt for her died
forever. He felt only relief that he knew his own feelings at last. And
now that he saw her for what she was--a frivolous and self-centered
person, no better or worse than most of her contemporaries, only more
beautiful and therefore further prey to men's dreams--he could feel
sympathy for her.

Colin knew perfectly well that the wealth he had inherited from his
grandfather, the Campbell name and his position as judge of Denbury
Court made him a "catch." As such, Jeannie had been delighted with him.
But she was becoming uncomfortably aware that there was more to her
prize than she had counted on--prickly opinions and ideas which might
alter the course of the agreeable life she envisioned.

The mistake had been his more than Jeannie's.

Gently, quietly, he had said to her that day at Enos Pollard's, "I
should have known the house wouldn't appeal to you. We'll explain to Ann
Stewart and take our leave."

But Ann was nowhere to be found that day. Colin had gone back to Hobb's
Creek a few days later to tell her that Jeannie felt the house was too
far from friends and family.

"It was kind of you to come and tell me, Colin, but I knew, of course.
She would be very unhappy here in the mountains." Her tone of voice
quiet and polite as it was, told Colin that she and Jeannie would never
have been friends as he had once imagined.

"Yes, I understand her point of view," Colin had forced himself to say.
"But my heart is set on that place. I can't help feeling disappointed."

He could not tell Ann what he now knew; that he would never marry
Jeannie. Their quarrels had grown so constant since that day that he
knew it would not be long before Jeannie would release him. Vanity alone
had made her hold on this long. A week or two after their visit to the
mountains, they had, in fact, had such a serious disagreement that
Jeannie, by way of punishing him, had gone to visit a schoolmate in
Washington. She had just come home for Christmas and Ralph Campbell had
invited Tom Dare and his daughter to Quail Wings for Christmas dinner
tomorrow. If she did not see for herself that her "punishment" had
failed, Colin planned to ask her to break their engagement. He was
thoroughly tired of living a fiction.

Lost in thought, he had ignored the familiar landscape. Now Dusty's
eager gait told him they were almost home. As the carriage pulled up
before the house, the front door was flung open.

"Colin! You old darling!"

"Betsie--you're here!"

The woman who threw her arms around his neck was tall, and made to seem
taller by a trim and well-proportioned body that she carried as one born
to grace. Her lustrous dark hair was done in ringlets which nodded down
her slim back. Her full, rich lips framed a smile of welcome, and both
laughter and mischief danced in her deep brown eyes. Betsie, Macklyn's
wife, was thirty-five, but it was still apparent why the former Miss
Ballinger had long held sway as a reigning beauty. She still commanded
a second and more than lingering glance from all males between the ages
of sixteen and seventy-six. Colin embraced her joyously. Here was one
person at Quail Wings with whom he could never quarrel.

"Betsie! When did you get in?"

"This afternoon and a good thing! One more day in Washington and Macklyn
would have started fighting those Yankees all by himself. Stand back and
let me look at you."

Grinning, he underwent her inspection. Betsie laid a forefinger along
her chin and shook her head in mock dismay.

"It's a mortal sin."

"What is, Betsie?"

"That a man as handsome as you has stayed single so long. But I hear it
won't be much longer."

"Are we alone?"

"For the moment, yes."

"Can you keep a deep secret?"

"Cross my heart!"

"I'm afraid the wedding is off. The lady changed her mind. She'll be
here tomorrow for Christmas dinner and she'll keep up appearances, you
know, but she'll be announcing it soon."

Betsie studied him shrewdly. "You sound almost as heartbroken as if
you'd said it was going to rain tomorrow."

"Can you keep another secret?"

"I'm sure I can," Betsie smiled.

"I'm delighted. It would have been a disaster."

"Then I'm delighted, too," Betsie said. "But you won't escape forever,
you know."

"I hope not." Then, dismissing the subject he asked, "Where are the
children?"

"Linda and Lorena," Betsie grimaced, "are out pestering Zack to give
them the wildest mounts he can find for them. Ralph's still at West
Point, but he'll be here soon."

"He's resigning his commission, too?"

"You didn't know?" Betsie's voice was hollowly dramatic. "A Campbell who
served in Mr. Lincoln's army! Why, he'd just as soon forget to help a
lady, if she was pretty enough, into her carriage!"

"Macklyn is with Father, I suppose?"

"Yes, they're celebrating South Carolina's secession."

"Celebrating! Are they insane?"

"Evidently," said Betsie, as she left him at the door of his father's
study.

They had, indeed, been celebrating--to such an extent that they had
managed to swallow the common delusion, along with a good deal of
Bourbon, that secession would rule out any possibility of war.

"Don't you see," Macklyn asked Colin after they had greeted each other
warmly, "that if there is a separate nation composed of the Southern
states, the present reasons for conflict will vanish overnight? This
whole quarrel over the new states being admitted to the union--the
question of whether they should be free or slave states--has been
responsible for more bitterness than any other point. By setting up
their own country, with their own laws, their own government and all
that goes with it, the Southern states will wipe out this problem
altogether and, with it, the danger of war." He smiled happily.

"Secession might wipe out that particular problem," Colin answered, "but
it raises dozens of others. What happens, for example, to federal
property within this separate nation? Fort Sumter in Charleston harbor
belongs to the United States government. What would you do with it?"

"The fort belongs to South Carolina--it lies within her boundaries,"
Macklyn answered firmly. "You lawyers are always splitting hairs."

"Perhaps. But don't forget that the Congress in Washington is made up
largely of lawyers. It won't be any different in the capitol of your new
nation."

Nothing could shake Macklyn's happy conviction. He and Ralph Campbell
were too elated for argument that night. The stormy evening Colin had
foreseen was spent instead in swapping stories and reminiscences.

The next morning, Christmas day, Macklyn told Colin that he planned to
run as a delegate to the Richmond convention that had been called to
determine whether or not Virginia would secede. He would, of course,
stand in favor of secession.

"You won't have my vote," Colin said, smiling. "In fact, I'll do my
darndest to persuade whoever I can to vote for your opposition."

Macklyn was less elated today. He did not answer Colin's smile.

By the time Jeannie and Tom Dare arrived for Christmas dinner only
Betsie and her daughters were in a festive and hospitable frame of mind.
Colin had double reason to dread this gathering; Macklyn and his father
were preoccupied with matters of state.

Jeannie was all smiles and charm to everyone but Colin. By little signs
that only he would understand, she let him know that he was still being
punished, that apologies should be forthcoming--or else.

Macklyn had never met Jeannie before. "However much we disagree in other
matters," he said in compliment to Jeannie, "I can see that we share the
Campbell eye for beauty, Colin."

Ralph Campbell beamed at the lovely girl who would, he thought, soon be
his daughter-in-law. "If I were twenty years younger, I'd try to beat
Colin out myself." Colin wished himself a hundred miles away.

Hard as the men tried, however, they could not avoid the subject that
preoccupied them.

"I'm afraid I don't agree with you that secession eliminates the
possibility of war," Tom Dare told Macklyn.

"I don't think it eliminates the possibility, but it seems to me that it
lessens it."

"The Yankees will find some way of meddling," Ralph Campbell put in.
"I'm afraid we have been too optimistic. We've forgotten how pigheaded
and greedy they are. The South is too valuable for them to give it up
without a fight. Well, then, we'll fight, every man-jack of us."

"Yes, they'll have to be taught their lesson sooner or later," Tom Dare
said, with a pugnacious expression on his face.

At this, Colin could keep silent no longer. "Do I hear you right, sir?"
he asked Tom Dare. "I remember a conversation we had not so long ago in
which you said it would be a black day for the South if war ever came
because the South couldn't possibly win. How do you reconcile that with
'teaching the North a lesson'?"

Tom Dare stared at Colin as if he had lost his senses. "I said such
things? I'm afraid you have me confused with one of your mountain
friends," he said with a cold sneer.

Jeannie laughed merrily at this jibe. "Father is always saying the
Southerner is five times the man the Northerner is," she said earnestly,
turning to Macklyn. "Do you agree with that, Colonel?"

Macklyn smiled at this bit of feminine naivet. "I believe he is five
times as determined and enthusiastic, at any rate. There are exceptions,
of course, like Colin here."

Colin felt a deadly rage growing within him. Quickly, before he could
give it expression, Betsie said, "I believe Colin is saving his
determination and enthusiasm for the person," she glanced coolly at
Jeannie, "or the cause that merits it. Colin is not the only Southerner
who is opposed to secession, who dreads the prospect of war. You will
find, I think," she addressed her husband, "that if you are chosen to go
to Richmond you will be in the minority."

Colin had regained some of his composure. "Mr. Dare made reference to
my mountain friends. They happen to be Virginians as much as we, and
they are fine people, proud, independent. They have a lot of common
sense, even though few of them can read or write. They don't give a
crooked cent for the 'Southern way of life.' Forgive my saying so, but
you gentlemen have spent so much time agreeing with each other that you
don't realize there are great groups of Southerners who don't see things
your way at all."

"I think in important matters they will follow the lead of those of us
who can read and write, my boy," Ralph Campbell said smugly. "They
always have."

When at last the final bit of plum pudding had been consumed, Macklyn,
Ralph Campbell and Tom Dare retired to the study with a bottle of
brandy. The young lovers, it was assumed, would want the drawingroom to
themselves. But, after a separation of three weeks, they did not rush
into each other's arms.

Jeannie eyed Colin coldly. "Why did you contradict Father during dinner?
You were very rude."

"He contradicted himself. I merely pointed it out as politely as I
could."

"It seems to me that, if anything, you've changed even more since I was
away. Colin, we can't go on like this." Here she gave him a chance to
apologize for his strange behavior.

"No, we can't. And, Jeannie, I'm convinced that, each of us being what
we are, we'll never be able to go on any other way."

Jeannie stared at him openmouthed. "What do you mean?"

"I am not your kind of person, and you are not my kind. We should never
have become engaged--we could never be happy together."

Jeannie stood silent and motionless for a moment, her eyes blazing. Then
she drew his ring from her finger and flung it on the carpet. Tossing
her head, she ran from the room.

Colin did not move. He heard Jeannie asked William the doorman to get
her cloak and summon the Dare carriage. "Tell my father I had a headache
and will send the carriage back for him." He heard the carriage pull up
and heard it leave, taking Jeannie out of his life forever. He did not
move, afraid to disturb the sensation that pervaded him. It was
happiness.




  CHAPTER V

  Campbell Hill


Astride the powerful stallion, Robin, and balancing across his saddle
bow a wriggling hound puppy, a Christmas gift for the Stewart boys,
Colin neared the head of the valley that led to Hobbs Creek. Ten inches
of soft snow troubled Robin not at all, but the puppy whimpered and
snuggled close to Colin for warmth. Colin stroked it gently. Her sons
loved dogs, Ann had said, and they had none. Well, they would have one
now. Colin grinned suddenly at the thought that Ling might try to
wheedle the puppy away from his sons so that he could train it to hunt.
With two boys and Ann opposed to him, he hadn't a chance.

As they entered the Pollard clearing, Colin's heart quickened, and he
drew Robin to a halt. He sat in the saddle, taking in the beauty and the
peace of the scene before him, and knew suddenly what he was going to
do. He was going to buy the Pollard place and live here alone. Life
would become more and more difficult at Quail Wings, he was sure of
that. Here was the answer to his problem.

As he sat thinking, the puppy wriggled free from his grasp and slid
down to the ground. The pleasure of running free in the snow was too
much for it. It began racing in circles, yipping as it went. Colin
dismounted hastily. "Here, boy--come on boy!" But the puppy refused to
give up his sport. There was nothing to do but wait for the little devil
to get tired.

"Colin!" There was pleasure and surprise in the woman's voice that
called his name from the direction of the house.

"Why, Ann!" he was about to ask, "What are you doing here?" but checked
himself. As she walked toward him, he explained, "I was on my way to
your house with this puppy, a Christmas present for the boys, when he
wriggled away and started this nonsense."

"What a wonderful present! They'll be delighted. Merry Christmas, by the
way."

"Merry Christmas! My day hasn't been the least bit merry up to now, but
just being in the mountains has already improved it. There's
something--"

Ann interrupted him, "Come inside and warm up. I've just built a
fire--it only needs to be lit."

"I mustn't leave Robin standing long in the cold, but there's something
I've got to talk to you about."

She stood aside to let him enter and closed the door against the cold
wind. As he walked into the house, followed by the suddenly docile
puppy, it struck Colin forcibly that, somehow and at last, he was truly
in tune with Christmas and all it meant. At the same time, he felt
curiously that he was an intruder. Ann had a reason for coming here
today which excluded him and, evidently, her own family.

When the fire was blazing and they were seated before it, Colin said,
"Ann, I want to buy this house and move into it as soon as it can be
made ready."

"But Jeannie--"

"Jeannie and I are not going to be married. I would live here alone.
Zack and Nell, whom I employ, will take wonderful care of me."

"I'm terribly sorry, Colin."

"Sorry!" For one very bad moment he thought she was terribly sorry that
she couldn't sell him the house. Then he realized she was referring to
his broken engagement. He smiled. "I should pull a long face, I know.
But you can't imagine how wonderful it feels _not_ to be engaged to a
girl you don't love."

"I think I can." Ann looked into the fire for a moment and then said,
"You can buy the house, Colin. We'll arrange the details later but,
before we do, I would like to tell you why I am here today and every
Christmas day. No, I guess I'll have to go further back. Can you bear to
hear the story of my life?"

"I have been anxious to hear it since I first came to Hobbs Creek."

"My father built this house when my brother and I were small children.
He was tired of the family business in Baltimore and wanted to lead a
more quiet life, with time to study and write. He and my mother loved
the mountains--anyway, we came here. My father had engaged an architect
in Baltimore to build the house just as he wanted it, down to the
smallest detail."

"What about your education--yours and your brother's?"

"My mother taught us to read and write, to do arithmetic and so on. The
house was crammed with books; we devoured them. And when we were
fourteen--my brother was two years older than I--we were each, in turn,
sent to school in Baltimore."

Ann stared thoughtfully into the fire for a moment, collecting her
thoughts, while Colin pondered the significance of the phrase "my
brother _was_ two years older than I."

"We were wonderfully happy here. We hated going away to school and
longed for the Christmas holiday even before the school year began. It
was during my second year at school, when I was fifteen--" Ann's voice
quavered and broke off. She paused, not to collect her thoughts this
time, but to get her emotions under control. "On Christmas day, when I
was fifteen and my brother seventeen, some half-drunk Cherokees came
raiding while we were still asleep in bed. Our old servant Samson roused
us and took one of Father's rifles to frighten them and send them on
their way. They killed him before he fired a single shot. By that time
my brother and father were fully alerted and armed. My brother was
inexperienced and reckless. He made an easy target from behind a window
and soon he was wounded in the chest. He died within a few minutes but
not before my mother, in tending him, had been killed outright. My
father held them off singlehanded for thirty minutes before one of the
servants sneaked away from the quarters out back and brought help from
Hobbs Creek."

"Why didn't the servants come to help you themselves?" His own voice
sounded muffled to him. His tongue was thick with rage and horror.

"They were unarmed. It would have been suicide for them to try to
approach the house."

"Did you see the whole thing?"

"Blessedly, no. Liza, Samson's wife, was beside herself with grief. At
the start, to keep her out of the way, my father ordered her to keep me
out of rifle range. I fought her like a wild cat--I wanted to take up a
gun myself. But she weighed close to three hundred pounds. Finally she
just sat on me, both of us sobbing all the while."

She spoke eagerly, without reserve, as though there had long been a need
to share the hell of that day with an understanding heart. Colin knew,
and gave thanks for his perception, that she was freely giving a part of
herself that she had tried desperately, and always unsuccessfully, to
give to anyone who would accept it.

"Sometimes when I pass this house," she resumed, "I hear the Cherokees
yelling and see my mother and brother lying dead in their bloody
nightclothes, and again I live everything I lived that Christmas day.
Other times it's as though that day had never happened, as though
they're still here. Can you understand that?"

"Yes, I can, Ann."

"Yes, I can read it in your eyes. Why does no one else ever know?"

"Because few love as deeply as you."

"That isn't the answer," she said. "Mary Murdock Stewart loved her baby.
Ling was very young when his mother died, but he loved his father
greatly. His father died a year after the raid, of a wound he got that
day chasing the Cherokees."

"Then your mother and brother were avenged?"

"Only two of the Cherokees escaped. My father shot three--the men from
Hobbs Creek killed the rest. But I can't believe that one death atones
for another. I thought God would punish the raiders. It shook my faith
when men did."

"Do you want to tell me what happened after that, Ann?"

"Yes," she answered calmly. "It was a black time, a lost time.
Overnight, it seemed, my father's mind deserted him. He turned from a
vigorous, youthful and highly intelligent person into a wordless,
helpless old man. He had loved his books, his family and his home. He
cared little for anything else. He had always received a generous income
from the family business and left the management of it in my uncle's
hands. I sent a letter to Uncle Nat, telling him of the raid. He came at
once and--"

"Go on," Colin urged. Unnoticing, he had put his hand on hers in an
unconscious gesture of sustenance.

"Father did not even recognize him. He wanted me to leave with him at
once, but I wouldn't leave Father. He promised to send for both of
us--but he never did. No more money came from Baltimore. We had to let
the servants go; we couldn't feed them, let alone pay them. Liza
wouldn't go, poor old thing, but she died that Spring. Father and I
would have starved if it hadn't been for Ling. He watched over us,
brought us food and clothing, did everything for us that we couldn't do
for ourselves. He was wonderful."

"I know," and now Colin knew also why Ann had married Ling.

"When I was eighteen, Ling and I were married. Of course, I had told him
I could never leave Father. He knew that. Father had been growing worse
staying in this house--too many memories for him--and Ling wouldn't have
stayed here, anyway. So for seven years now this house has been empty. I
am glad it will be lived in again." She smiled at him. "It was made for
happiness. One crazy freak of fate does not change that. I hope you will
be happy here if you still want to buy the house after what I have told
you today."

"From the moment I saw this house, I've wanted to live here. I felt I
knew the man who had built it--I knew what kind of life he wanted to
lead here. The house is haunted for me only by the happy family that
once lived here, and they will be pleasant company."

Ann smiled. "Thank you, Colin. We were pleasant company, I think."

"Ann, before we talk about the house further, I want to appoint myself
your lawyer. Now that you've attained your majority and might press a
case in court, have you given any thought to collecting your father's
share of the family business?"

"Yes, but Ling doesn't believe in courts. His going to Denbury Court was
a gesture of defiance, not compliance. If he thought we needed any of
Uncle Nat's money, and we don't, he'd go find him in Baltimore and take
it by force."

"Direct and to the point," Colin murmured, "but hardly practical. If you
would like to start legal proceedings, I'd be glad to do it for you."

"I'd rather you didn't, Colin. I shouldn't care to do anything unless
Ling approved."

"I understand. Now will you grant me a favor?"

"Of course."

"Come to this house and visit with your mother and brother whenever you
want."

"Thank you very much, Colin." It was an evasion, and he wondered why.

"Your favor, Ann?"

"Yes--yes--I will come whenever I want," she said in some confusion.
"Shall we go now to Ling and the children? Ling will be so excited to
hear you are buying the house and the children will be wild about the
puppy. Ling will talk to you about the sale. I know nothing about it,
not that he knows very much more."

"Let me retain a lawyer for you in Wetherly. That would be best."

"If Ling agrees, fine. You're the first townsman he ever took to, you
know. I'm sure he'll accept any suggestion you make."

They put out the fire and while Colin roused the puppy, who had fallen
asleep in a sheeted armchair, Ann took a last look around the room in
the light of the lantern she held. This was a farewell, in a way. The
house would be Colin's from now on. She watched him as he bent over the
puppy. And suddenly she knew why she had felt she knew him from the
first. A stab of pain went through her at the knowledge, so sharp she
almost cried out. She loved him. Her earlier recognition had been, not
of an old acquaintance, but of her heart's secret desire.

    *    *    *    *    *

"Are you perfectly serious, Colin?"

"Perfectly, Father. I've already arranged to buy the house. It needs a
good deal of repair work. It hasn't been lived in for seven years, you
see. But I should be able to move in by the end of March."

"But why do you want to leave Quail Wings? I know I have said things in
haste that may have offended you. Pay them no mind. I am an old man, set
in my ways and opinions. I don't always understand you, but I respect
your right to think as you do."

"Thank you, sir." The two men looked deeply into each other's eyes. "I
will always remember that."

"Now that you are not marrying Jeannie Dare (And, by the by, I'm not too
sorry about that. I don't quite like that father of hers; he would make
trouble for you.), why should you want to move?"

"I've always loved the mountains. They mean something special to me--I
can't explain it myself. And this house is a jewel. I hope you'll ride
up there with me and see it soon. The whole setting, the way of life it
promises, is what I want. Remember I'll be at Quail Wings every day that
court is in session. You'll see a good deal of me."

"One other thing, Colin. Isn't this a bad time to start a new venture?
In my soberer moments, I know well enough that as more and more states
secede, the chances of war increase."

"All the more reason, to my mind, to do as much as you can of what you
want beforehand. I know well enough that if war comes--much as I believe
it needn't, much as I'm convinced it would solve nothing--I will be
drawn into it. Well, then, I'd like to have as much from life as I can
now."

"Won't it be rather lonely there for you?"

"Lonely! Why, no. I've always been bored to death with most Denbury
social affairs. You know that. I much prefer the company of the mountain
people. And some day, I hope, I'll marry." Why did the vision of Ann
Stewart sitting before the fireplace on Christmas day come into his
mind? She was Ling's wife.

"Have you spoken to Zack and Nell? Are they ready to go there?"

"They'd love it, they say. I am moving them up there next week so they
can help put the house in order. They're sorry to leave Dab, of course.
But they can come here to see him from time to time." Dab was their only
son.

"They won't be enough for you. Tell you what; I'll make you a present of
Dab and that little girl he married last summer. What's her name?"

"Elva. That's wonderfully kind of you, Father. Zack and Nell will be
overjoyed. And, of course, you're right. Two in help wouldn't have been
enough."

"Dab is an excellent gardener, and William tells me that Elva is an
excellent housemaid. With Nell in the kitchen and Zack in charge of the
horses and dogs, you'll be very comfortable. I'll have to visit you now
and then; Nell's cooking will be a powerful lure."

"I hope you will come often," Colin said eagerly. He rose. "I have an
appointment in Wetherly with Mrs. Stewart and her lawyer. I must be off.
Thank you again, Father, for your understanding and your generosity."

    *    *    *    *    *

A prosperous little village, Wetherly was the funnel through which the
timber, crops and wild game of the mountains poured down to the coast.
To a lesser extent, it was also a distribution center where mountaineers
might find merchandise from the coast. The residents of Hobbs Creek came
to Wetherly, usually on foot, when they needed sugar, salt, spices or
any other article they were unable to make or produce. They usually
traded by barter.

Wetherly had a Baptist church and an Anglican church and a school. There
were some farmers, Germans or Scots who treasured and improved their
land and who, when their time came, would hand it down to their sons. Of
the three merchants, two made a decent living and one, William Bodine,
was accumulating some wealth. No matter what anyone wanted to buy, he
had it to sell. He combined shrewdness, often carried to the point of
trickery, with a deceptively affable personality. He, Alec Gerould, the
schoolteacher and lawyer, and Jackson Cartwright, the banker, were
Wetherly's three leading citizens. There were three blacksmith shops,
all busy because of the great horse traffic in Wetherly and the
surrounding lumber camps; a tinker's shop; various craftsmen; a doctor.
Citizens of Wetherly who were not self-employed could always find work
in one of the logging camps or in Jackson Cartwright's sawmill. And
Wetherly also had the usual complement of town loafers.

When Colin, the deed to the Pollard place in his pocket, and Ann emerged
from Alec Gerould's office, the idlers were lounging on the verandah of
Con Magloon's Wetherly Inn guffawing at some activity in a vacant lot
across the way.

Colin turned to see what caused so much amusement. A middle-aged man,
who walked with a decided limp, was instructing eight gawky youths in
the art of drilling. All carried green sticks over their shoulders in
lieu of bayonets.

"Fix bayonets," the middle-aged man commanded.

"Why that's Jason Maxwell, the carpenter," Ann said.

"Why on earth is he trying to drill those boys?" Colin asked.

"From what I hear," Ann said, "Jason has always wanted to be a soldier.
He's read every book he could get his hands on about war and
soldiering. Now he's sure that war is coming and he's convinced those
boys they'd better be ready for it."

They stopped to watch for a moment. Jason Maxwell waved his hand toward
a patch of weeds and shouted to his company, "The Yankees are there!
Charge!"

The boys started across the field at a shambling run. Only three
remembered to lower their "bayonets" into proper position. Suddenly one
of the three tripped over his stick and lurched into the man ahead of
him. Both sprawled to the ground. Jason Maxwell screamed and pulled at
his hair. The men watching laughed hysterically.

Colin took Ann's elbow and they walked on. Suddenly he said to her,
"This was play--what we saw. But if war comes, how many awkward boys
exactly like these will be slaughtered like cattle because they don't
know what they're doing? It makes me sick to think of it."

"Do you think war will come, Colin?"

"Yes, I'm afraid it will."

"What will you do if it does?"

"I don't think I'll have much choice. Now we argue pro and con. But when
the time comes we'll all be swept into it as helplessly as leaves in a
storm."

Ann was silent a moment. Then she said, "You sound so hopeless; yet
moving into Campbell Hill, as you call it, to start a new life in a new
place is a hopeful act."

Colin turned to look at her. Her lovely brown eyes were fixed on him in
inquiry. "That's the human condition, Ann. We seem to go on hoping even
when there's no hope."

Ann paled and lowered her eyes. "Yes, we do."

"Hey, Ann, Jedge!" Ling called them. He had brought Ann into town and
gone off on his business while they transacted theirs. "Everything
settled?" he asked.

"You now address the proud squire of Campbell Hill," Colin said. "Hatch,
the contractor, has told me it won't take more than two months to make
all the necessary repairs, down to the last dab of fresh paint. I won't
be able to stay away from the place for more than a few days at a time.
Can we go hunting from time to time?"

"Sure thing. And any time you want to stay the night or drop in for a
meal, just come by."

"Thanks, Ling. That's very kind of you, but Nell and Zack will be there
after next week and they'll be able to fix me up. I'll come by, though,
you can be sure of that."

He saw them to their trap, tied to a hitching post down the street, and
waved to them as they rode off. He had felt happy, even joyous, all
afternoon, all through the driest, dustiest financial and legal details.
Now he felt alone, empty. And he knew why.

Ann was no longer here. She had gone--gone home with her husband to
their two children, he reminded himself fiercely. Slowly, so slowly he
hardly noticed, she had crept into his dreams, then his waking thoughts,
now his daydreams. He had fallen into the bad habit of contrasting her
with Jeannie, originally; then, Jeannie dismissed entirely from his
dreams and plans, he had thought of her in an almost abstract way as a
gracious, warm and loving woman, the ideal wife and mother. Then she had
appeared in his dreams, not as the ideal wife of Ling Stewart and
mother of his sons, but as his own beloved Ann.

After their talk on Christmas day, he found himself thinking of her
constantly, of her courage, sweetness and beauty. Now thinking of her
was not enough. He wanted to be with her. And what would he do when her
mere presence did not suffice?




  CHAPTER VI

  The Housewarming


Zack himself dug his barbecue pit and, while Colin took over stable and
kennel chores, went to search for exactly the wood he wanted. He must
have pine to give his fire life, oak for endurance, hickory for glowing
coals, and mulberry to impart a final magic touch found in no other
wood. But he could not simply cut the first trees he ran across; if the
wood was too green it merely smoldered and if too dry it scorched the
outside of the meat without penetrating to the bone and tender marrow.

As Zack found the trees he wanted, he felled them and returned to
Campbell Hill for a mule team and wagon to haul them in. He used a
bucksaw to cut proper lengths for the barbecue pit, then split each of
the larger lengths into quarters or eighths and the smaller lengths into
halves.

Zack had never been able to explain the secret of his barbecue, partly
because he himself did not understand it fully. And he didn't know that
it harked back to religious ritual handed down by African forebears who
lived in villages. But anyone who had ever tasted Zack's finished
product could happily testify that it was incomparably delicious.

At the exact hour of sunset--an imperative part of the ritual--Zack
started his fire. Using pine as a base, he waited until it blazed and
then added hickory and oak. Nothing was done haphazardly. The hickory
and oak must be laid alternately, and at precisely the proper angles.
Then he laid nine carefully selected boulders on top of the blaze. When
his roaring fire subsided to red-hot coals, Zack banked the coals with
ashes. Finally he made his grill from the tough trunks of young and
green oak trees and went to bed.

Zack was up with the dawn, and in the woods to gather herbs; mint for
tang, the bitter root of jack-in-the-pulpit to be used sparingly, for
strength, and wintergreen for flavor. According to the use for which it
was intended, each had to be young and tender or old and woody.

He laid the herbs on a slab of bark, and, being careful not to crush
them, covered them with another slab and tested the temperature over the
banked coals with the palm of his hand. It was as it should be. Zack
laid his grill over the pit and arranged upon it four shoats and three
lambs. Then he squatted beside the pile of mulberry chunks. He laid a
chunk on the fire, watched it flare and die into ashes, and laid on
another. When the pile of mulberry chunks was exactly half gone, he
garnished each of the carcasses with wintergreen leaves.

Nell came from the big house with containers of salt and pepper and
parcels of assorted spices. She sniffed hungrily.

"Sho' smells good!"

"It bettah be good. Wheah's Mistah Colin?"

"Gone roussle out eve'y man, woman, an' chile what lives he' abouts an'
ask 'em all to come. Guess I ought to go back. That Cloe an' Emma,"
borrowed from Quail Wings for the occasion, "they do' know what side of
the stove's the hot 'un."

"He ridin' Nancy?"

"Yeah."

As he approached the Stewart clearing, Colin drew the roan, rough-gaited
Nancy to a slow walk while his imagination created for him what his
heart would have to encounter. He would be greeted by Enos, his old
scholarly self. Ann would be waiting just for him, and her eyes would be
telling tales that only he could read. Colin tried to drive the fantasy
from his mind and could not. He loved Ann as he never had and never
would love another woman. If she were married to a complete stranger,
the situation would have been difficult enough. That Ann was the wife of
Ling, who lavished on Colin all the blind faith and sublime confidence
of the most devoted hound in his kennels, created an obstacle that
nothing could possibly overcome.

When he entered the Stewart clearing, six-year-old Jeffrey, accompanied
by the hound puppy, came running. "Uncle Colin! Uncle Colin!"

Colin halted Nancy, waited for the boy to draw alongside, gave him a
hand up, and steadied him in the saddle. Jeffrey turned a happy face,
Ann's face, to Colin's.

"Some day I'll have a horse just like this."

"I'm very sure of it."

With the hound puppy frolicking beside them, Colin hugged the youngster
tightly. He had, he thought wonderingly, lived most of his life in a
shell. He thought he had known the common people, but he had known from
the height of the judge's bench only those who appeared in Denbury
court. Not until he came to live in the mountains had there been any
genuine understanding. Without knowing it, he had shared the
snobbishness of the planter class. Without ever thinking about what the
element might be, he had assumed there was some mysterious trait which
set most of humanity apart from himself. Now he knew that, given equal
opportunities, Ling's sons and all the other children on Hobbs Creek
would in every way be the equal of all children everywhere.

They reached the house and Jeffrey slid to the ground.

"Good morning, Colin," Ann called from the door.

"Good morning, Ann. I've come with an invitation. Will you all--the
whole family--come to a housewarming tonight? The last curtain has been
hung and Zack, Nell, Dab, Elva and I are all bursting with pride. We
want all the neighbors to join in our pleasure."

"Of course, we'd love to come. Do you want Father, too?"

"If you don't think it would bring him pain."

"I have a feeling that seeing the house lived in, cared for and full of
people, might help to erase the memory of it that he carries with him."

"Oh, I hope so. Bring him, by all means."

"I'm bursting with curiosity. I've kept away so that when it was all
finished it would all be a complete surprise. I haven't even let Ling
describe any of it to me--not that describing carpets and sofas is his
strong point."

"Is that why you've kept away?" Colin asked. "I've wondered."

Their eyes met with sudden intensity. "Yes, that's why," Ann said
falteringly.

Colin knew that if he did not leave this minute, he would blurt out
everything to her--that he loved her, that he longed for the sight of
her and that somehow he knew she loved him, too.

He turned abruptly, saying, "I must go to invite the Hamlins. See you
tonight! Six o'clock!"

After inviting the Hamlins, Garrisons, Tylers, Doyles and Murdocks,
Colin rode home. He stopped to chat a moment with Zack and to sniff the
aroma from the barbecue rack. "Master and Miz Betsie done come," Zack
told him. Though it was several years now since Zack had been Ralph
Campbell's slave, he still referred to him as "Master."

"Good!" Colin said and bounded into the house.

He found Betsie looking about her admiringly in the diningroom. The long
table was set for forty guests with the finest silver and the most
delicate china. On either side were smaller tables as elegantly
appointed. He took Betsie by surprise as she was in the act of picking
up a spoon and giving it close scrutiny.

"After my silver, eh?" Colin teased.

Betsie turned to face him, laughing. "Caught in the act! Oh, Colin, this
place is heavenly. The setting, the view, the house, the way you've
arranged it--everything! Even your father is terribly impressed."

"Where is he?"

"He's upstairs lying down. Lately he tires very easily, you know. The
trip on horseback was too much for him, though of course he wouldn't
hear of ordering the carriage."

"I want to take you on a real tour of inspection, but first tell me what
news you have from Macklyn."

"The convention goes on and on, waiting for some kind of assurances from
Washington. Most of the delegates are against secession but they don't
want to take a stand without obtaining some guarantees for the
Confederacy."

"The state is trying to mediate then, to prevent the possibility of
war?"

"Yes, but I'm far from sure that the conditions they ask will be met by
the federal government. Macklyn is confident they will. Now, show me
your house."

"With pleasure!"

As they strolled from room to room, amid Betsie's "Oohs" and "Ahs" Colin
gave her something of the history of the house. He ended by explaining
Enos Pollard's condition. "Do me a favor--keep an eye on him and be
especially kind to him. It's going to be something of a shock to him."

"What is the husband like?" Betsie asked.

"Husband? You mean Ling?"

"Yes."

"He is goodheartedness itself and the best woodsman I ever saw in my
life. But he is something of an overgrown boy."

"Is she happy with him?"

"Is she--who--Betsie, what is the reason for these questions?"

Betsie looked at him soberly. "You don't fool your Aunt Betsie for one
minute, Colin. You are in love with this girl, Ann. Heaven help you!"
And she went upstairs to get dressed.

The first to arrive that evening were the Watt Sacketts, with Hannah
tenderly cradling their blanketed baby boy on her lap and the diminutive
Watt driving a team of mules hitched to a farm wagon. He halted in front
of the door, helped his wife down from the wagon and escorted her up the
steps.

"Hello, hello, hello!" Watt effusively greeted his host. "Here we be,
Colin."

"And very welcome you are."

Colin was busy from that moment on greeting his guests, introducing them
to Betsie and his father and offering drinks. The women declined his
offers with thanks; the men accepted but sipped sparingly. Only Ralph
Campbell, who stood beaming before the fireplace with a tall glass in
his hand, drank with gusto. Colin smiled to himself as he recalled the
popular view that the mountain men devoted half their time to hunting
and the other half to drunken debauchery.

The last to arrive were the Stewarts, Ann radiant and lovely in a
periwinkle blue dress she had resurrected from her boarding school
trunk. At the sight of her, Colin sharply drew in his breath and his
spirits spiraled upward.

The women busily marveled at the house, the like of which they had never
seen. The men were teasing Tracy Hamlin, just turned eighteen, who had
been seen kissing Anita Murdock as he escorted her to the housewarming.
Anita Murdock hung her head, scarlet overspreading her cheeks. Enos
Pollard sat with his grandsons, staring about in a bewildered but happy
way. Only Ann sat alone, looking thoughtful.

"How do you like it, Ann?" Colin asked.

"Colin, it's lovely. And you've succeeded perfectly in restoring the
atmosphere it once had. Father feels it, too. Look at him. He is
wakening a bit from his nightmare. And I've just been sitting here
feeling twelve years old."

"I can't tell you how happy that makes me," he answered. Betsie joined
them. "I don't think you have met my brother's wife, Betsie. This is Ann
Stewart."

Smiling and exchanging greetings, the two women appraised each other and
liked what they saw. Then Betsie said, "Excuse me for interrupting you,
Colin, but your father wants to see you a moment. He's in the study."

Entering the study, Colin was amazed to find Macklyn's son Ralph
standing solemnly beside his grandfather, who was sprawled dejectedly in
an armchair. As far as Colin had known, Ralph was in Richmond with his
father. His presence here meant news from Macklyn--bad news, Colin
thought.

"Ralph," he said. "What is it?"

Ralph drew himself up stiffly as befitted a West Point man and a future
officer of the Confederate Army, conscious of the importance of this
moment.

"The Yankees tried to reinforce Fort Sumter on the 12th, against a
warning from General Beauregard that he would fire if they did. His men
fired. Fort Sumter has surrendered. Lincoln," Ralph spat out the name,
"has asked for volunteers to put down the 'rebellion.' The delegates in
Richmond have probably already voted for secession by now."

"It's war--it's come," Colin said confusedly.

"Father and I are leaving in the next day or so for Montgomery to offer
our services to the Confederate Army." There was a lilt in Ralph's
voice. The fool was actually elated, Colin realized bitterly. "Father
will send for you as soon as he returns, to let you know what you may
do."

"How can the South win a war against twice--" Colin began.

The old man in the armchair had roused himself. "Colin," he said with
spirit, "I think it's not as bad as you imagine. The South need not win
in a military sense. Macklyn explained that to me. She need only defend
herself with enough vigor to show the Yankees that it's useless to try
to conquer her. If I know the Southerner, it won't take us long to
prove that."

"I hope you're right," Colin answered.

"Uncle Colin, may I have a fresh mount?" Ralph asked. "I have to get
back to Quail Wings tonight and on to Richmond tomorrow."

"Won't you have dinner and stay the night? I have guests--"

"There's no time for that," Ralph interrupted impatiently.

"Then, of course, I can give you a fresh mount. I'll see to it now."

Somehow he got through the dinner, smiled and joked and did all that was
required of a genial host. He decided not to tell the people of Hobbs
Creek the news until he had had time to think it over. He knew that what
he said and how he said it would have a profound influence on them.

After dinner, his guests happily occupied with each other, he sought
solitude outdoors. By the light of the rising moon the mountains loomed
dimly before him. The sight of them calmed him; it always did.

All over the South, he thought, and doubtless all over the North, fiery
patriots were springing to the sacred call. Editors were filling
columns. Orators of high and low position were thundering from anything
they could stand on about the righteousness and justice of the cause
they favored. Depending on the sentiments and personal prejudices of the
preacher, beyond all doubt God was firmly behind both North and South.

Colin stared at the starry sky, trying to imagine war's effect on Hobbs
Creek. The mountain people could not avoid being swept into it, even if
they wanted to resist. They would be used to stem the tide of battle as
lavishly and dispassionately as stones and logs were used to stem the
flow of a creek. They would require sympathy and understanding in their
senseless ordeal. Suddenly in his mind's eye Colin saw Ling in uniform,
marching under the command of a spit-and-polish officer like young
Ralph. Ling would no longer be an individual but a mere unit, expected
to perform like a perfect mechanism. Instant, unquestioning obedience
would not only be expected but also demanded, and Ling was as incapable
of such performance as he was of climbing a rainbow. No amount of
training or punishment was going to make him any more amenable, Colin
knew. He would always be a rebel, a trouble maker from the army's point
of view. And so would the other men on Hobbs Creek.

Colin knew then what his role was to be. He would be the buffer between
these men and the army. The only way he could do that, he realized, was
to be their commanding officer. He would see Macklyn about it as soon as
he returned. Perhaps it could be managed.

"Colin!"

He turned to find Ann Stewart beside him.

"What has happened, Colin?" she asked anxiously. "I saw your face during
dinner. You did your best, but I could see that you were terribly upset
by something."

He answered gravely, "Bad news, Ann. War has broken out between the
North and the South."

"Oh no!" Then she said dully, "You will go. Ling will go."

"I'm afraid every able-bodied man will be called on."

"Can men think of nothing but hunting and fighting? Is the life with
which God endowed you so loathsome that you must forever seek to court
death?" Her voice was anguished.

Before he knew what he was doing, Ann was in his arms and he was saying,
"Life could never be loathsome to me, Ann, as long as you are in it
somewhere. Just to know that you are there, to see you now and then--"

He felt her heart beating wildly beneath his own. His lips eagerly
sought hers; his lean hard body pressed tightly against her yielding
one. For a moment, he knew only ecstasy and then he became aware that
her hands were pushing him gently away. In the dim light he saw her
upturned face and her eyes looking steadily into his. "Colin," she said
softly, "I've wanted that as much as you did. I'll say it now, for you
to know forever: I love you. You are my first and only love."

"Ann," he moved toward her, "my darling!"

"No, Colin, we mustn't. Please!"

"Yes, you're right," he mumbled helplessly.

"Colin, listen to me, please." She took his hand. "I love my children. I
love Ling, too, as a friend, a brother, a comrade. He has been good to
me. I wouldn't hurt him for an instant."

"Nor would I, Ann. This won't happen again." He added bitterly, "The
war comes at an opportune moment."

"Don't!" Ann half-sobbed and then checked herself. "It is time to take
the children home. I must go in."

"Goodbye, my darling. Remember that I love you always."




  CHAPTER VII

  Recruits


Macklyn, now General Macklyn Campbell of the Confederate Army, was back
at Quail Wings after three weeks at Montgomery, conferring with
Confederate leaders. Only this morning Toby, overseer of the stables at
Quail Wings since Zack left, had brought Colin a message scribbled in
haste: "Must see you at once. Macklyn." And Colin, mounted on Robin, was
on his way to Quail Wings.

During the three weeks since war had broken out he had fretted
constantly. The more he thought of it, the more he was convinced that
his idea of leading the mountain men was the only service he could
perform in this war with any degree of satisfaction to anyone. And
events on Hobbs Creek had confirmed his original feeling that the army
and the mountain people were like oil and water.

Young Lieutenant Hazard, a V.M.I. cadet as full of military starch as
young Ralph Campbell, had come to Hobbs Creek looking for volunteers.
Tracey Hamlin had rounded up every male between fifteen and fifty for a
community meeting at the Hamlins'. The men had been as excited as small
boys, emitting war whoops as they came, squabbling among themselves
about who should go and who should stay; all their grievances against
the East and all their hard common sense had departed. When they had all
assembled in the Hamlins' yard they were so busy laughing and whooping
it up that Lieutenant Hazard could not get their attention.

"Quiet!" he had barked in best parade ground style from the height of a
tree stump. "Quiet!" He had made no impression at all. They had not told
him what to do in such situations at V.M.I. Colin had seen that Hazard's
private inclination was to stamp his foot and burst into tears. Before
anything as disastrous as that happened, Colin had intervened.

"May I borrow your rifle, Ling? I'll only need it a moment."

Ling had interrupted a gleeful conversation with Watt Sackett long
enough to say, "Why, sure, Jedge!"

Approaching the stump where Lieutenant Hazard stood helpless, Colin had
asked, "May I quiet them for you, Lieutenant?"

"Oh, please!" the boy had answered with a most unmilitary quaver in his
voice.

Mounting the stump, Colin had aimed the rifle at a height a foot or more
above the tallest man there. As the bullet whizzed above their heads the
men broke off their gabbing and looked toward the stump.

"If you banty roosters will stop your crowing," Colin had said quietly,
"Lieutenant Hazard has a few words he'd like to say to you."

The lieutenant had not been able to forgive himself his own failings. He
had drawn himself up--he was still a growing boy and had yet to shave of
necessity--and in his starchiest voice had begun, "Gentlemen, I assume
you know that Forts Sumter and Moultrie have fallen, that Virginia has
seceded and that the president of the North has called for volunteers to
invade our beloved Southland." He had droned on and on, appealing to
their honor, their chivalry, their love of the South.

Colin had watched the men's faces. First there had been amusement at
this pup in his fancy uniform giving himself a general's airs. Then
there had been boredom--this milk-toothed whelp made war sound like a
ladies' quilting bee. Then there had been a hard-faced indifference;
they wouldn't be talked into anything by some fancy-pants lieutenant.
When the lieutenant called on all volunteers to raise their hands, Colin
had not been at all surprised that not a single arm was lifted.
Lieutenant Hazard reported back to his commanding officer that the
mountain men were a wild and unpatriotic lot and would only be
militarized by conscription.

Now Colin was on his way to persuade Macklyn that this was not so. As he
rode through Wetherly he looked for any changes the war might have made
in the life of the town. A farmer was driving a yoke of oxen up the
road. Saddled horses twitched their tails or stamped their feet at
various hitching posts. Children played. Jason Maxwell, the middle-aged
clubfoot who had devoted his spare time to studying military campaigns,
was again drilling awkward country youths in an empty lot. (Colin noted
that their number had grown.) Dogs lounged and scratched their fleas.
The saw in the mill screamed as it ground through another log. Men and
women went about their small but all-important tasks precisely as they
went about them every day of their lives.

In a democracy, according to theory, the people made every decision; the
people would decide in favor of or against war. Colin thought bitterly
that with few exceptions nobody in Wetherly had any clear ideas about
why North and South differed or why war should be. But the people he saw
about him would not respond to the voice of reason. They would be lured
by a rattling drum, an inflammatory poster, an impassioned speaker. They
would hate, but they would never really know why they hated. If reason
prevailed, however, there would be no war.

As he left Wetherly behind him, he reprimanded himself. Who really
understood war? He recalled an incident described by Macklyn, who had
fought in the war with Mexico. Once, Macklyn said, he was ordered to
capture a small but well-garrisoned town and to do so with as little
bloodshed as possible. He sent a Mexican, a man of great ingenuity and
daring, into the town to inform his countrymen that the Americans had
fled. In the surprise attack that followed, not a single American
soldier was lost. Describing another incident, Macklyn had referred to a
cowardly, contemptible American turncoat who had helped Mexicans ambush
American soldiers. Macklyn had seen nothing paradoxical in his
evaluation of the two men. It had never even occurred to him that the
Mexican was at least as traitorous as the American, or that both must
have had courage and perhaps even conviction.

Passing Tom Dare's place later, Colin was astonished to see a horde of
soldiers, some with and some without uniform and all obviously among the
first recruits of the Confederate Army, engaged in various tasks. Had
Tom offered his services to the Confederacy? It looked that way. He must
ask Macklyn about it. Colin had not seen either Tom or Jeannie since
Christmas day and had, in fact, scarcely thought about the Dares. Betsie
had told him that Jeannie was seen about a good deal with Bob Talmadge,
her friend Laura's brother, and he had felt only pleasure that she had
been so quickly diverted. Then he smiled ruefully to himself as he
thought of his own love for Ann; it predated, he was sure, any interest
Jeannie might have for young Talmadge.

For the first time in his life Colin went directly to the study at Quail
Wings and entered without knocking. His father, as usual, sat behind the
desk and as he looked at him, Colin hoped he successfully concealed the
shock he felt. He had known, of course, that his father was old, but for
the first time he _seemed_ old. His cheeks were sunken, his face
haggard, his eyes haunted.

"Are you ill, Father?" Colin blurted.

"Not exactly," Macklyn answered for the old man. "He is upset because
the army refused to accept him."

"You--you don't mean he tried to join the army?"

"And why not?" A little of his father's old spirit flared. "Why
shouldn't I serve the army in some capacity? I've forgotten more about a
thousand different things than some of these snippy young officers will
ever know."

Macklyn's fine dark eyes were gentle as they warned Colin to humor the
old man.

"I know just what you mean," Colin assured his father. "Why, we had a
recruiting officer visit Hobbs Creek the other day who knew as much
about handling men as a six-week-old kitten."

His father looked grateful.

Colin glanced at the star on Macklyn's shoulder. "Congratulations,
General Campbell," he said. "What will your assignment be?"

Macklyn smiled proudly. "I'm to be in charge of the army of upper
Connicon." Then, looking stern, he added, "Now that war has come, you've
forgotten all that nonsense about the futility of war and so on, I
hope?"

"I haven't changed my views and I don't consider them nonsense, but once
the die is cast I know it is useless to discuss them further. Tell me,
there'll be conscription, I suppose?"

His father gasped. "Colin! You would wait to be conscripted?"

"Not for myself, Father. I was thinking of the men of Hobbs Creek and
what their future will be."

"I had in mind stationing you at Dare's Landing," Macklyn said. "Tom
Dare has been made colonel in charge of supplies for this area and
he'll need someone who knows the law and can cut through a mass of rules
and regulations and legal details. It may seem odd to you to be put
under his command in view of your old relationship with Jeannie, but we
must all forget personal considerations in this emergency."

The idea of doing Tom Dare's paper work filled Colin with horror. "No,
no!" he said. "Some older lawyer can do that better than I. I have an
idea of my own. But tell me first whether there will be conscription."

"If the war lasts more than three or four months," Macklyn answered,
"there will certainly be conscription. But we are hoping by a strong
show of volunteer strength to demonstrate to the Northern leaders that
it is useless to try to take the South by force of arms. Virginia will
naturally be the crucial state."

"I see," Colin said. "In other words, either a man volunteers now and,
by swelling the Confederate Army, serves to warn the North by his mere
presence in uniform, or there will be real hard fighting and the need
for conscription."

"Yes, that's about it," Macklyn answered.

"Here's my idea, then," Colin said. "My neighbors on Hobbs Creek were
bursting to join up when they heard that war had broken out. But the
Confederate Army sent that young pup I mentioned earlier up to recruit
them and in fifteen minutes they'd lost every ounce of enthusiasm they
ever had. They're good men and they'd make the best fighters you ever
saw, but they're used to a lot of leeway and they'd never take orders
from a conventional army officer."

"You mean they're undisciplined," Macklyn said. "The army would knock
that out of them soon enough."

"They have their own kind of discipline," Colin answered. "But they
require someone who understands what it is to be their leader. I've been
among them a good deal. I like them and respect them, and I think they
feel the same way about me. I would like to recruit them and serve as
their commanding officer. Put them under the wrong officer and they'll
desert within two hours."

"Then they're too unreliable."

"They're steady as a rock under the right circumstances. If they're
under my command, I'll answer for them."

"Are you sure you can handle this?" Macklyn asked, concern on his
handsome, dark face.

"I'm sure."

"If you'll take the word of a useless old man," Ralph Campbell put in,
"I think Colin has a splendid idea there."

"All right, Colin. You have a free hand and may expect a captain's
commission. Are you prepared to start right away?"

"Yes."

"Come into Denbury tomorrow. Your commission will be ready and you will
be sworn in. You'll buy your own uniform, of course."

"Where is the army headquarters in Denbury?"

"We've taken over the inn. You know, by the way, that you'll have to
resign your judicature."

"Yes, I'll do it tomorrow."

"Do you have a training center in mind for your troops?"

"Wetherly's a central point and I should be able to recruit more men
there. My men will be issued arms, uniforms, supplies and pay according
to the standards of the Confederate Army, of course?"

"Of course. I'll arrange everything, don't worry. And I'll have a
barracks ready and waiting for you in Wetherly."

"That's all I need to know for the time being. I'll get my horse and go
home to start recruiting."

"You aren't even going to stay overnight?" Macklyn asked. "I know Betsie
is eager to see you."

"Give her my love and tell her I mustn't waste a minute while a war's
on," Colin teased.

    *    *    *    *    *

Colin sent Zack to tell all the Hobbs Creek families that there would be
an important meeting at Campbell Hill and ask the men, women and
children to come. For himself he reserved the task of telling Ann and
Ling. Ling, he knew, would greet the idea of serving under Colin with
enthusiasm, but he wanted to be sure that Ann understood his motives.

As he approached the Stewart cabin the two boys, followed by their
invariable companion, the hound pup Colin had given them, rushed out to
greet him. "Are your mother and father at home?" he asked them.

"Mother is but Dad has gone into Wetherly," Jeffrey answered.

At the sound of their voices, Ann appeared at the cabin door.

"Hello, Colin," she said. "It's such a beautiful day I was about to go
for a walk with the boys."

"May I join you? I have something important I want to tell you about."

Ann was flustered. "The boys--" she began.

Colin smiled at her. "It's entirely suitable for their ears."

"Let's go, then."

They set out toward Frenchman's Peak, the boys racing on ahead.

"I wanted to tell you, Ann, before I tell the whole community this
evening, about a plan I have been nursing since the news of war came to
Hobbs Creek the night of my housewarming." At the reference to that
evening, they both fell silent for a moment, remembering. "When you came
out to me that night I had been thinking about the Hobbs Creek men and
what the war would mean for them. They have been accustomed to as much
freedom as a human being can possibly attain. Army life is the very
opposite of all that they have been used to. If they entered the Army in
the usual way, they'd be in serious trouble in no time at all."

Ann murmured her agreement.

"I cannot escape being made an officer; I am a so-called prominent
citizen and the brother of General Macklyn Campbell. I know these men
and have a high regard for them. My idea, then, was to be made their
officer so that, knowing their good and useful qualities, I could
protect them from what the Army would consider their bad features."

Ann stopped and thought seriously for a moment, her brow puckered with
intensity. Looking down at her, Colin was filled with such tenderness
and longing that he moved away and pretended to scrutinize a perfectly
ordinary dogwood tree.

"What do you think?" he asked finally.

"I think it is the best that can be made of a terrible situation. Have
you been empowered to do this?"

"Yes. I am already Captain Campbell. My uniform is in the making and my
brother has arranged that there shall be a Wetherly unit. I'll be in
complete charge."

Ann smiled. "I think, then, your only difficulty will be in trying to
keep Grandpa Teague and all the other unsuitables from joining up. As
for Ling, I can hear his whoop of joy right now."

They walked on, talking lightly, easily, grateful to be alive and
together on a beautiful spring day. Only on their return, as they
approached the cabin, did Ann take Colin's hand and press it against her
cheek. "Bless you and keep you," she murmured and ran into the house.

    *    *    *    *    *

That evening Colin rose before the assembled company and explained to
them his reasons for seeking a commission and his reasons for believing
that the men would be better off under his command. "Now I've been made
a captain," he concluded. "I have promised to recruit a company. Some of
you, I'm sure, will want to serve in it."

"S'pose we don't want to serve?" Darnley Hamlin demanded truculently.

"Then you won't."

"You won't try to haul us off to jail or nothin'?"

"I will not. I want no man in my company who isn't there of his own free
will and who doesn't understand the situation before he volunteers."

"You'll be the big boss?"

"That's right."

"I ain't soldierin' with none of them fancy-pants officers like was here
the other day."

"You won't have to, Darnley."

"Then I'll go," Darnley declared. "What with that mis'ry in his back
when it rains, Bedloe wouldn't do so good soldierin'. But he will take
care of Georgia and my young 'uns."

"I'll count on you then, Darnley."

"Whar's the war?" Wilton Doyle demanded.

"So far there isn't anything except a declaration; neither side is
strong enough to launch any worthwhile attack. But there will be war and
we must be ready for it."

"Will it come to Hobbs Crick?"

"I doubt if there'll be fighting in Hobbs Creek; there's no worthwhile
military objective here. But if the North wins, Hobbs Creek will be
under northern influence."

"Wouldn't like that," Wilton said. "How long will it take to whip the
pants off these damyankees?"

"I don't know," Colin admitted. "Some say two months, others that the
war will drag on for at least two years."

"What do you think?"

"I believe it will be a long war."

"But we will womp these Yankees?"

Colin said reluctantly, "I don't know that either."

Wilton conferred with his wife and turned back to Colin. "Count me in."

Bill Garrison shouted, "I'll go!"

"Me, too!" Tracey Hamlin roared. "Got no wife an' kids to leave behint!"

"I'll soldier with you, Jedge," Ling Stewart said. "Enos can handle the
farm."

"I'll sojer," Tom Tyler offered.

Colin shook his head. "I'm afraid not, Tom."

"Why?" Tom bristled. "You think I'm scairt to fight?"

"It isn't that. You have no one to leave with Hope and the youngsters."
He had an idea. "Unless you'd like to let them live here at Campbell
Hill?" Colin addressed Hope. "Would you care to do that?"

The timid Hope said, "If Tom goes I would."

"I'm goin' sojerin'!" Tom said happily.

"So am I!" Douglas Murdock said fiercely.

"Ye are not!" his brother proclaimed with equal ferocity. "I go!"

They rose, preparatory to starting around the table towards each other.
Colin halted them. "Hold it, you two!"

Half-standing, they stopped glaring at each other to look inquiringly at
Colin. He took a coin from his pocket.

"We'll settle it. All right, Douglas?"

"Heads."

Colin flipped the coin, and Ling and Ann Stewart and Darnley and Georgia
Hamlin leaned eagerly forward as it landed on the table cloth.

Darnley exclaimed, "Tails!"

Douglas Murdock looked enviously at his brother. "Ye'r the lucky 'un."

Jonas Garrison spoke up. "Tom an' me been talkin' it over, Jedge, not
jest 'twixt ourselfs but with Mary an' Joanna, too. Wilbert, he ain't
wu'th a hooty owl's hoot anyplace else but he does aw right on Hobbs
Crick. He'll make out with that big young'un of his an' some of our
young'uns to help. We'll go."

After the last of his guests had departed, Colin sat alone in his study
and scanned the list of volunteers. There were eleven; without them
Hobbs Creek would be drained to the danger point. Some men were staying
behind, however, and there was no alternative. He wrote:

    Dear Macklyn,

    I have recruited all the able-bodied men in this vicinity: 11. I
    suggest moving to Wetherly and vigorously continuing the
    recruiting program.

      As ever,
      Colin

The next morning Colin handed the note to Zack and asked him to deliver
it to Macklyn at Quail Wings. He learned swiftly that, though the mills
of God may grind slowly, they grind with super speed compared to the
mills of the army. More than four weeks elapsed before Private Willie
Matson came up the road from Wetherly on a horse so gaunt that it seemed
certain to collapse at the next step. Willie Matson leaned from the
saddle to hand Colin a formal order, and Colin read:

    To Captain Colin Campbell

    Upon receipt of this order, you will escort all recruits under
    your command to Wetherly. You will contact and be assigned to
    barracks by Mr. William Bodine.

    When it is feasible, Sergeant Arnold Bell will be detached from
    his present assignment to instruct your recruits in rudimentary
    warfare. Pending the arrival of Sergeant Bell, you will interest
    yourself in securing as many additional recruits as possible.

      Macklyn Scott Campbell
      Brig. Gen in command, Upper Connicon Milt. Dist.




  CHAPTER VIII

  Wetherly


Colin rode Robin into Wetherly at half-past nine on a Tuesday morning.
He wore a new and expensively tailored captain's uniform; he was
determined to do everything properly. But everything seemed wrong. A
captain, he thought uneasily, should be preceded by drummers and
accompanied by smart troops. The only articles on Hobbs Creek which even
resembled drums were a couple of tom-toms that Bedloe Hamlin had
supposedly captured in Indian fights. As for Colin's troops, not one of
them had seen any sense in taking the road to Wetherly when he might
hunt his way down. Colin had wisely granted them permission to go on
their own; had he not done so, his men would have hunted anyway.

As Colin tied Robin to a hitching post in front of William Bodine's
store, he heard snickering among the loafers who spent their days
chawing and gossiping on the broad steps of the store.

"Is something bothering you gentlemen?" Colin demanded sharply.

"No, Cap'n," one said, "we jes' wondered if--if--"

"If what?"

"If you was aimin' to fight this here war all by yourself?"

Colin stalked proudly into the store, hoping by hauteur to cover his
self-consciousness. A captain without troops did look silly, and Colin
was sure that he felt even sillier. He squared his shoulders and waited
for William Bodine to come to meet him.

"Ah! Captain Campbell! It's a pleasure to meet you again!"

Evidently Bodine chose to ignore the circumstances of their last meeting
in court. "Thank you," Colin shook the proffered hand. "I've been
advised that you will provide barracks for my troops."

"Ah, yes," Bodine shook his head and clucked his tongue. "And a
melancholy task it is preparing for this tragic war. But we must do what
we can to make sure the South will win! Then, after we have subjugated
the North's physical resources by force of arms, we must conquer its
mind by force of our intellectual powers. Only by so doing may we insure
that this catastrophe will never recur."

Colin remained silent. In addition to being a successful merchant and a
proved liar, he decided, William Bodine was also extremely pompous.

Bodine said, "I'd volunteer myself if I were younger. How many troops do
you have, Captain?"

"Twelve at the present time." His original eleven had been unexpectedly
augmented by the woods-runner, Johnny Mossmoss, who joined as soon as he
was assured there would be fighting.

"There'll be more!" Bodine said fervently. "The young men of Wetherly
will show themselves to be true in this crisis! Jason Maxwell has at
least twelve more who are pledged to join. By the way, Captain, you will
accept Jason?"

"Isn't he clubfooted?"

"Yes, but he has made a thorough study of the military and has done
splendid work in training the boys. Surely you could use him in some
capacity?"

Colin answered dubiously, "We should have none except able-bodied men."

"Oh, Captain Campbell! Surely you'll need a clerk or an orderly or could
use Jason in some other way where his disability won't hinder and his
abilities will help?"

"We'll see." Colin looked sharply at Bodine but refrained from telling
him that Darnley Hamlin and Tom Garrison were both older than he and
that there was certainly a place for William Bodine, too, if his views
were so patriotic. "Now, the barracks?"

"Ah, yes. Your personal quarters will be in my home, Captain. Are your
men outside?"

"They haven't arrived yet. I--I had them deploy on both sides of the
road to scout their way down. It's part of their training."

Bodine nodded. "Commendable. Commendable, indeed." He called, "Lena!"
and a middle-aged woman appeared from the back room. "Take over the
store, will you, Lena? I must escort Captain Campbell to the barracks I
have procured."

As they left the store, a breathless pink-cheeked youth rushed up to
Colin. "Cap'n, sir! Kin I j'ine up?"

Colin looked at him kindly. "How old are you, son?"

"Six--nineteen, sir."

"Sixteen, aren't you?"

"I'm most nineteen," the boy mumbled. "Paw, he wouldn't let me j'ine up
till a sure enough sojer come. He says Jase Maxwell might know what he's
doin' but he ain't the real army."

Colin sighed. The whirlwind, in full force, was sweeping children and
cripples alike before it. "What's your name, son?"

"Clem Faraday, sir."

"And your father will give his permission?"

"Oh, yes! He wants to j'ine up hisself."

"Then bring your father to--" Colin glanced questioningly at William
Bodine.

"Clayton's barn will be barracks for the Wetherly unit."

"I'll come!"

Clem Faraday whirled and dashed off. Colin untied Robin and walked
beside William Bodine, leading his horse. The merchant said happily, "I
told you there'd be more."

"He's too young to go to war," Colin said angrily.

"He can shoot," Bodine answered, and Colin found himself heartily
disliking this man whom he had previously and impersonally known as a
trickster.

Soon they arrived at Clayton's barn, a massive unpainted structure that
had been used as a stable for the many horses of the Clayton Lumber
Company. When the best of the timber close to Wetherly had been cut, the
company had moved farther away from the town and had abandoned this
barn.

"There it is," Bodine said proudly, "and a hard time I had buying it
from Clayton at a reasonable price."

Colin looked hard at the wide gaps between the buckled siding on the
barn, at the holes in the roof where shingles had blown off, at the hay
protruding from the hayloft. He sniffed and knew the stabling had not
been cleaned. "This!" he exploded. "A place for human beings!"

"You'll have private quarters in my house."

"No, thanks, Mr. Bodine! I'll stay with my men."

"Well! You needn't be so huffy about it!"

"I don't need your further attentions, Mr. Bodine. Go home and count the
fat profit you must have made when you sold this wreck to the
Confederate Army."

"Don't boss me around!" Bodine flared. "I'm not one of your recruits and
this is not Denbury Court!" And he stalked off indignantly.

Blast Bodine! Colin glared after him. He knew, however, that no war had
ever been fought or ever would be fought without great numbers of
profiteers. Bodine was not the only profiteer in the South and doubtless
his counterpart existed in the North. Meanwhile, the barn must serve as
the Wetherly barracks.

He put Robin in a box stall, removed the saddle and the bridle and
carefully stood his 58 Worthington in a corner. He turned grimly to
examine further the Wetherly barracks. Soon he felt better. The shingles
that had blown off could be nailed back on, and it was a warm spring.
The hay would be useful as bedding, as well as food for Robin and any
other horses or mules they might acquire. But they needed blankets,
cooking utensils, food and many other things. Above all, the place
needed cleaning.

"Captain Campbell!"

Colin turned to see Jason Maxwell standing in the door. He was in his
mid-forties and of medium height and stocky physique. His sandy hair was
streaked with grey. His full lips were rich and sensitive, almost
esthetic. His eyes glowed with joy. All his life he had dreamed of being
a soldier, and now his dream was close to realization.

Saluting smartly, he said "I'm Jason Maxwell, sir, and I have recruited
twelve men who wish to join your unit." The names he read from a sheet
of paper included his own.

"Thank you, Mr. Maxwell," Colin said gravely. He hesitated a moment,
wondering how to tell this man that his own services would not be
needed.

"You can use all of us, sir?" asked Maxwell. His eyes pleaded
desperately.

Colin looked searchingly into his face and quickly changed his mind.
"Why, certainly," he said, smiling. "Of course I can. Have your men
report at once and have each bring either a wheelbarrow or a shovel."

"Yes, sir! Will you swear them in, sir?"

"Oh--oh, yes, of course."

"We'll report as soon as possible, sir!"

Jason Maxwell hobbled away and Colin sighed with relief. Jason should
not be in the army, but Colin remembered the gawky youths drilling on
the vacant lot while the loafers in front of Con Magloon's snickered. He
had seen the glow in Jason's eyes. Colin thought the war was a
nightmare, but to Jason Maxwell it was a dream. The thought of Maxwell's
happiness lifted Colin's spirits.

Searching the barn for something with which to begin cleaning up, Colin
considered all that needed to be acquired--food, cooking utensils,
blankets, shoes, arms, uniforms. He hadn't the least idea how he was to
obtain these things. Obviously the supply center at Dare's Landing was
not yet functioning at full capacity.

He was scraping away at the mess on the barn floor with a broken shovel
he had found in the granary when Jason Maxwell reappeared with his men.
In spite of the fact that each man carried a shovel or pushed a
wheelbarrow, there was a distinct air of military precision about them.
Colin blessed providence for sending Jason Maxwell his way.

Now Jason lined up his men and called their names: "Adams, Barkman,
Dodge--"

When he had finished, Colin said, "Very good, Sergeant."

"Sergeant!" Jason flushed in happy astonishment but recovered instantly.

"Correct, Sergeant Maxwell." Colin hoped he was maintaining the
military formality that Jason expected and wanted. "You will instruct
the men in their present duties and report to me."

"Very good, sir." Jason Maxwell's voice possessed a tone indispensable
to all good sergeants. "Police it up!" he told his men and then joined
Colin. "Next, sir?"

"We need rations, arms and uniforms. How do we go about getting them?"

"We'll have to requisition them from Dare's Landing."

"I see--Ah, there's one of our men now."

It was Johnny Mossmoss with a rifle in his hand and a turkey over his
back. Colin gave silent thanks that his men had hunted down from Hobbs
Creek. Jason Maxwell looked horrified as Johnny leered at his commanding
officer. "This our camp, Jedge?"

"This is it, Jo--Private Mossmoss."

Johnny looked curiously at him. "What's got into you? Name's Johnny like
it always was."

"You are in the army, Private Mossmoss. Now pick that turkey clean and
start cooking it."

"Sure, Jedge," Johnny said amiably.

Next came Marvin Teague with another turkey, followed by Ling Stewart,
Watt Sackett and Tracey Hamlin. All three dragged bucks behind them.
Colin sighed in relief. The Wetherly unit would never be one of the
army's best-disciplined, but it was likely to be one of the best-fed.

    *    *    *    *    *

When they had eaten roast venison and turkey and were sitting around
the fire, the recruits from Wetherly were somber, silent, uncertain.
This was a novel way of life for them. The Hobbs Creek men, who were
accustomed to camps and campfires and who did not consider this one
particularly impressive, were silent for their own reasons. Then one of
the men from town addressed Ling. "Why ya takin' yer joolry to war,
sojer?"

Ling did not answer.

Irked, the soldier tried again, "What'sa matter? Can'cha talk? Why ya
takin' yer joolry to war?"

Ling's eyes smouldered, warning the Wetherlyite not to pursue the matter
further. But the warning was ignored.

"Weddin' ring, too. Wifey don't wan'cha to forget her while you're away
bein' a hero. Now ain't that sweet?"

Colin sat next to Ling, but he had to act swiftly in order to leap over,
grab the muzzle of Ling's rifle and force it upward. "Ling, don't be a
fool!"

"I'll kill the--"

"Lower your rifle! He didn't mean anything."

"'Course I didn't," came the frightened voice of Private Barkman. "I
didn' mean nothin'."

Colin felt the tension ebb out of his friend. But the anger remained and
for a long time would remain. Private Barkman would not be safe close to
Private Stewart for the rest of the night. Colin thought fast. "Ling,
will you leave at once with a requisition for Colonel Dare at Dare's
Landing?"

"A what?"

"An order for supplies. We have nothing here."

"All right."

"Leave me go, too, Jedge," Tracey Hamlin said.

"An' me!" from Watt Sackett.

Colin nodded agreement and turned to Jason Maxwell. "Will you draw up
the requisition, Sergeant?"

"I have already done so, sir. I've ordered supplies for forty men, but I
don't think the complete order will be filled."

"I'm sure you're right," Colin agreed, "but let's get what we can." He
read aloud by the fire's light, "Cots, 40; blankets, 80; rifles, 40--"

"Don't need no rifle," Tracey Hamlin asserted. "Got one.

"Me, too," Wilton Doyle said.

"Sho don't need no rifle 'sides the one I got," Johnny Mossmoss put in.

"Quiet!" Colin snapped. He finished reading, signed the requisition and
handed it to Ling. "Do you understand?"

"Yep."

As the three disappeared in the darkness, Colin turned away from the
fire so that the others could not see his face. He thought about the
gold ring on Ling's left hand. It was a wedding ring, and because he
loved her, too, Colin understood why Ling had not wanted to leave her
without this much of Ann. He looked at his own left hand. It seemed
gaunt, ugly and naked. He quickly thrust it behind his back.

Zack brought Colin's desk and swivel chair from Campbell Hill, and the
Hobbs Creek men had cheerfully walled off a corner of the barn to serve
as their captain's quarters and office. Zack had brought Colin's bed,
too, but that was in the barn's refurbished granary serving as a
hospital bed for Private Louis Cantrell. Dare's Landing had sent
twenty-three cots for thirty-eight men now in Colin's command, but that
number was sufficient, for there were seldom twenty-three men present.

Outside Sergeant Maxwell said, "Right face!"

Colin paused to listen sympathetically. Jason had done his best to bring
about orthodox military discipline in the Wetherly unit. From the very
first, his task was hopeless; the Hobbs Creek men could see no sense
whatever in performing maneuvers with a rifle when there was nothing to
be shot. Jason accepted things as they were, however, and any
disappointment he might have felt was more than compensated for--at
last, he was a soldier.

Turning back to his desk, Colin scanned an army directive. When he had
finished reading it, he yelled, "Sergeant Maxwell!"

Jason hobbled in. "Yes, sir?"

"Where are Thomas, Jonas, and William Garrison, Tracey and Darnley
Hamlin, and Privates Doyle, Sackett, Stewart, Teague, Tyler, Murdock and
Mossmoss?"

"They haven't been here for the past week."

"Are any others absent?"

"Spencer, Jackson and Mullins."

"Listen to this notice."

    To Captain Colin Campbell:

    First Sergeant Arnold G. Bell will report to you July 11 and
    will be assigned by you as drill master.

      Col. James W. Williams

As Jason heard the order, his face fell. But he said quietly, "I'll
order Spencer, Jackson and Mullins in."

"All of the men must be in tonight. You will assume command until I
return this evening."

"Yes, sir."

"Sergeant Maxwell, when I appointed you as non-commissioned officer, did
I or did I not specify that you were to be First Sergeant?"

"You did not, sir."

"An unforgivable omission," Colin said coolly. "I should have been more
specific. But you are First Sergeant and, regardless of when Sergeant
Bell joined the army, you have been longer with the Wetherly unit.
Therefore, you are to continue as ranking sergeant."

"Yes, sir! Thank you, sir."

Until he gave this order, Colin hadn't been sure that he really
commanded the Wetherly unit. Let his superiors send as many sergeants as
they wished to send; he would still give the orders in his own unit.

He saddled and bridled Robin, who hadn't been getting enough exercise,
and headed up the road to Hobbs Creek for the first time since the
Wetherly unit had assembled. Robin broke into a canter, had to be
restrained to a trot and was still fresh when they arrived at Campbell
Hill. Zack came back from the stables while Colin looked about
approvingly. The stable was clean, the horses in the pasture were well
cared for. Pegasus looked over his paddock and snorted defiantly at
Robin. The hounds, scenting their master, sent up a furious outcry.

Zack's welcome was both in his words and in his eyes. "It's almighty
good to see you!"

"And you, Zack! How are things?"

"Nothin' wrong."

"Have you seen the recruits from Hobbs Creek?"

"Yes, they's all home now."

"Will you saddle Pegasus and ride to the Hamlins, Garrisons and
Murdocks? Tell the men that they must return to Wetherly at once. Tell
them I said so." He reserved an excuse to go to the Stewarts and catch a
glimpse of Ann, he realized ruefully.

Entering the house he was happily greeted by Watt's wife, Hannah
Sackett, who had elected to stay here with Hope Tyler. "It's so good to
see you again," she said.

"It's wonderful to be here and to see you, Hannah, but I can't stay.
I've come to ask all the men to go back to Wetherly."

She nodded. "They said they'd go back when they were needed. Watt and
Tom are both working their farms. Hope and the children have gone down
with Tom for the day. I'll tell them as soon as they come in this
evening."

"That won't be soon enough. They must return tonight. We're getting
another sergeant, and absence might be considered desertion. The penalty
can be severe."

"Shall I get them right away?"

"Can you?"

"Of course."

"I would appreciate it."

"Lan' sakes, Jedge!" Nell came running and threw both arms about him.
"You sho' what these eyes need to look at!"

"Hello, Nell. I swear you're getting prettier every day."

"You!" she chuckled. "Come on in the kitchen. I fix you somethin' to
fatten you up. You looks thin to me."

"I haven't time, Nell."

"I'll hustle it."

Hurriedly he ate the wedge of strawberry pie and drank the coffee she
insisted on giving him, planted a farewell kiss on her cheek and left.
Between them, Zack and Hannah were carrying the message to everyone
except Wilton Doyle, Marvin Teague, Ling Stewart and Johnny Mossmoss.
Colin stopped briefly at the Doyles and Teagues. As Robin trotted
towards the Stewart clearing, Colin realized he didn't know where to
find Johnny Mossmoss. Johnny made his home wherever he happened to be.
Ling would know where he was.

He felt a rising eagerness as he saw the Stewart cabin. Enos Pollard,
working in the fields, did something that would have attracted Colin's
instant attention under ordinary circumstances--he stopped working and
looked up without anyone telling him to do so.

The cabin door opened and Ann stood framed in it. She was so lovely it
seemed to Colin that his heart stopped for a moment.

"Colin!" Her eyes sparkled with pleasure and surprise.

He looked at her hungrily, glanced aside and felt his lips go dry. It
was nearly six weeks since he'd seen her. Now that he was with her
again, the only words he wanted to say to her were words he must
suppress. Finally he managed, "How have you been, Ann? You look
wonderful."

"We're managing pretty well. And you? You look a little thin and tired."

"It's been rather tedious so far. I miss the good mountain air." He
could not help adding, "I miss a lot of things."

"Yes, I know," Ann said softly. Then in her normal bright voice, "Won't
you come in?"

"I've come for Ling, Ann. He has to go back to Wetherly. Is he here?"

"He's hunting. He'll be along soon. Come in and wait for him."

"No, thank you--I must get back." He dared not be alone with her. "Will
you tell Ling to report back by sundown and to bring Johnny Mossmoss if
he can find him?"

"Johnny's with Ling. I'll tell him, of course."

"Ann--"

"Yes?"

"Thanks," he said clumsily. "Thanks a lot."

He forced himself to turn away and mount Robin, get Robin into a canter
and keep his eyes straight ahead. If he did not hurry, if he looked
back, he would be unable to leave at all.




  CHAPTER IX

  March to Manassas


It seemed to Colin that the rain had started falling when the world
began and would fall until the end. Yesterday afternoon, trudging
through the mud along with all his men, Colin had abandoned the attempt
to keep any part of himself dry. Half the men walked--they could not be
said to be marching--with empty rifles that would not fire because the
priming pans were wet. None had cared to complain as long as Jason
Maxwell, a clubfoot, not only kept pace but offered to help any who
could not. In fact, save for two or three chronic malcontents, they had
walked with spirit. They had been happier than they had been since
joining the army.

After the long monotonous weeks at Wetherly, they were going to war.

There had been constant trouble at Wetherly, largely because the
supplies that trickled in were deficient in quality and quantity. But
the Hobbs Creek men had seen to it that there was always enough to eat.
If they couldn't hunt, they had helped themselves to produce from local
farms. Colin could never discover the culprits and when the farmers
inevitably came raging to the barracks, they were never able to prove
anything.

Wetherly had been beset with rumors that the Yankees had been routed at
Bull Run, Washington had been invaded, New York was besieged, England
had entered the war on the Confederate side, and Illinois and Indiana
had cast their lot with the Confederacy. No one had known what actually
was happening. Life had gone on much as before, except that even Jason's
original group had wearied of his drilling. The men had spent more time
at home than they had spent at the barracks, but all had rallied with
whoops of joy when Colin had received orders to start his platoon
marching. Colin was to place himself under the command of Colonel
Harvey. Every man had received a twenty-four hour furlough and Colin had
gone to Campbell Hill.

There, near Ann, whom he would always adore but never possess, he had
found a measure of peace and some ease for his aching heart. He had seen
her only for a moment as they were leaving to go back to Wetherly but
the look on her face would give substance to his dreams for weeks to
come.

Colin inadvertently walked through a knee-deep puddle and Ling Stewart,
walking beside him, grinned. "Keerful, Jedge! You'll get wet."

"I might," Colin said amiably. "It does look like rain."

"Feels like it, too," Ling observed. Both men laughed. "How long afore
we tangle with them Yankees, Jedge?" asked Ling.

"It's about thirty-five miles to Tonston. Perhaps another two days."

Ling said hopefully, "If you send the best walkers on ahead, we might be
there and have some fightin' done afore mornin'."

"Nothing doing!" Colin declared. "We stay together."

Ling said soberly, "An army sure slows a man up." There was a moment's
thoughtful silence and Ling said, "Jedge--"

"Yes?"

"Looks to me," Ling said, "like we're fightin' for a mudhole."

Colin glanced sharply at his companion. He knew Ling's moods, was sure
that Ling wanted to confide in him, and for some reason had changed his
mind. But whatever he wanted to say would come out in time. The walking
men began enthusiastically to sing a marching song by a "composer" among
them.

  Shinner up a live oak,
    Shinner up a tree.
  If you can't ketch a wild cat,
    You can't ketch me.

Colin raised his voice to make himself heard above the clamor. "Smell
out a good camp site for tonight will you, Ling?"

"I'll keep my smeller workin'."

"We'll have to get something to eat."

Ling said indifferently, "We will."

"That's what I like about you!" Colin scoffed. "You worry so!"

Ling, who still seemed absorbed in his own thoughts, grinned. Presently,
almost as though he had known it would be there, he swerved to a dead
stump in an oak grove, kicked the stump apart, caught up a hand full of
dry wood, and in less than a minute had a fire started. Some of the
rain-soaked men brought more wood to build up the fire, while others
used brands from the first to start their own fires. Clem Faraday swung
his mule team into the grove, clambered painfully down from the seat,
and he and his son unharnessed and picketed the mules. The Hobbs Creek
men and some of the men from Wetherly reloaded and primed their rifles.

Tracey swung half around, looked intently at a pine tree about a hundred
yards off, raised his rifle, shot, and with a mighty buffeting of wings,
a wild gobbler tumbled out of the pine. Tracey smiled happily and said,
"Figgered an old gobbler'd be makin' hisself to home in that pine whilst
all this rain was sloshin' down."

Colin marvelled. In a cold rain, soaked to the skin, under the dreariest
conditions imaginable, these men needed only minutes to set up a
comfortable camp and start providing food. They were resourceful and
excellent marksmen. They were able to think for themselves and fiercely
resented anyone who tried to think for them. When and if they caught up
with any Yankees, Colin thought grimly, the Wetherly unit would be very
effective.

Tracey, Watt and Ling, a natural trio, went off together while the rest
of the hunters scattered in different directions. Louis Cantrell and
young Clem Faraday started plucking Tracey's turkey. Carl Arthur, Jason
Maxwell and George Barkman prepared biscuits for the dutch oven. Old
Clem Faraday sat on a boulder near the fire and unlaced his boots. Sweat
broke out on his forehead as he pulled them off. Colin looked on with
concern.

"Bad, Clem?"

"I'll make out, Cap'n."

Clem winced when he peeled off his socks and revealed feet that were
swollen and blue. Colin knelt to examine them, but aside from bathing
the feet in hot salt water, he didn't know what to do. Clem needed a
doctor's attention, and he would have it if they were able to find a
doctor. Meanwhile he had to ride on the wagon because he could not walk.
Colin cut up one of the spare blankets and as gently as possible bound
the strips around Clem's feet.

"Don't try to put your shoes back on."

"Thanks, Captain."

"Hadn't you better let someone else handle the team tomorrow?"

"I can handle 'em, Captain."

Colin knew a sudden fury. If Clem were home, working at his job in the
Wetherly sawmill, he would be all right. Because a conflict of remote
interests had resulted in war, Clem had gone off with a group of men who
called themselves soldiers and whose mission was to kill other men.
Admiration presently stole Colin's anger. It was painful for Clem to
move, and agony when he walked, but he walked when necessary. His brain,
or his heart, or his spirit--whatever mysterious force controlled his
life and made him human--was stronger than pain. He, and the others, had
courage.

From the west, the route taken by Ling, Watt, and Tracey, came three
shots so closely together that they sounded almost like one. Presently
the hunters appeared with the skinned carcasses of three young razorback
hogs that probably belonged to some settler but that had been running
wild in the hills and growing fat on acorns. The other hunters returned
with two turkeys and a deer, and as night fell, the fires leaped high
and the good smell of roasting meat was in the air. His back against a
tree, Colin ate his fill of roast pork and biscuits and found himself
strangely contented. The rain still fell, but roaring fires kept the
little group of men dry and comfortable. It was thus, Colin thought,
that ancient man had lived. It must have been a good life when a full
belly and a warm fire could insure happiness. Modern, complex man was
usually in trouble and made most of his own troubles--Colin interrupted
that train of thought. Tomorrow life might again be dreary, but tonight
it was very good. He lost himself in a dream of Ann.

Twice during the night he awakened when someone threw more wood on the
fire, and it occurred to him that there really should be a sentry
posted. Then he dismissed this thought. One of the Hobbs Creek men might
be taken by surprise, but it was impossible to take all of them
unawares. They would know if someone came, and they were not yet in
enemy country. Sometimes it was difficult not to feel as though they
were little boys playing soldier.

In the middle of the next morning, that illusion was shockingly and
permanently dispelled.

The rain had subsided to a monotonous drizzle. Every tree and bush
continued to drip water. The road they followed was not the one that led
down the Connicon, but a rough trace that offered a more direct route
over the hills. It was slimey with mud, and twice during the morning
they had to stop and lay corduroy--tree trunks side by side--so Clem
Faraday could drive his wagon through. The only signs of civilization
were occasional settlers' clearings. A bearded man with a rifle in his
hands glared from the open doorway of one. Behind him, a woman with
three small children huddled near her skirts did her best to see while
remaining unseen.

Colin called reassuringly, "You needn't fear us."

The man said nothing and continued to glare until the column passed.
Colin glanced uneasily over his shoulder, as though there were something
here that should not be. He sensed nervously that the men were anxious
too. There was no singing and little talking. Something to be dreaded
was here now or had been here. Every man stopped long enough to reload
his rifle.

Colin turned to Ling, "What do you make of it?"

"Nothin' yet, Jedge. But I don't like the feel of things."

"There's a kind of smell in the air," Watt Sackett observed. "Puts me in
mind of the time the Cherokees got Grant Severance an' his fam'ly. I
don't like it either."

"Been shootin' here'bouts," Johnny Mossmoss remarked quietly.

"How do you know?"

"Look."

Colin's eyes followed Johnny's pointing finger to a group of
smooth-barked aspens, two of which had unmistakably been nicked by
bullets. The bullets might have been fired by hunters at game, but, if
so, there had certainly been two hunters, for the nicks were twenty feet
apart, and the game had been running. The rain had hopelessly filled in
any tracks that might have offered a clue. Colin stopped, the men
halted, and Clem Faraday drew his lurching wagon up behind them.

Colin pondered. Imagination could play weird tricks, but if some real
danger lurked on this lonely, muddy trace it was far better to find out
than to lead his men into a possible ambush. Colin addressed the group.

"Ling, Watt, and Tracey, you come with me. The rest of you give us a
two-hundred-yard start and follow. Stay grouped and alert."

"Listen!" Ling commanded.

The sound, the far-off, mournful bawling of a cow, was repeated. Colin
shivered. He had expected to be afraid of blasting cannon and rattling
rifles, but now he thought that he would never again fear anything as he
feared the forlorn cry of this lone cow. There was something
threatening, ominous and dire about it.

"That cow ain't been milked," Watt Sackett said decisively.

"Which means," Johnny Mossmoss remarked, "that there ain't nobody about
to milk her."

Colin shivered again and knew that, if he followed his natural
instincts, he would run back along this lonely road until he was safe at
Campbell Hill. But these men looked to him for leadership. When he spoke
again he hoped he sounded very cool and confident, as a commander should
sound.

"We'll follow my plan. Johnny, you come with us, too. The rest of you
take cover if there's shooting and we'll fall back."

They drew ahead of the rest, the four Hobbs Creek men seemingly
unchanged but Colin taut as stretched buckskin. He was afraid, knew it,
and wished mightily that he had never undertaken the vast responsibility
of leading men into battle. There was an armed enemy, not a man but a
monster, behind every tree and in every copse. At any second he would
hear the cracking rifles that would cut him and his four companions
down, and just as he fell there would sound the thunderous volley that
would wipe out all the rest. But much as he wanted to go back, to run as
far as possible from the evil thing that had spread its dark shadow over
all of them, he must go ahead.

As they advanced, the cow's bawling became louder, clearer, more urgent.
Colin knew a rising irritation. War was cannon and rifle fire, bayonet
sparring, hand-to-hand combat, and in no way whatsoever related to a
tense sortie against a bawling cow.

Ling spoke casually, "Take it easy, Jedge. Ain't nobody here'bouts."

"How do you know?"

"If there was," Ling remained almost maddeningly indifferent, "that cow
wouldn't be bawlin'. She'd be milked."

Presently they came to a clearing in which there was a weather-beaten
cabin, a garden, and a lean-to barn. Near the barn stood a red and white
cow with curved horns and swollen udders. Wanting desperately to be
relieved of the load of milk that pained her, she took a few uncertain
steps towards the men.

Colin asked, "What now?"

"Milk her," Watt Sackett said practically. He walked slowly up to the
cow, stroked her with a practiced hand, and soothed her, saying, "So-o,
bossie."

Colin felt a mighty relief and an overpowering embarrassment. He had
stalked up the muddy road expecting to find an armed enemy, and he had
found an unmilked cow. The five men looked at each other and laughed.
When the rest came up, Watt Sackett took a pail from the wagon and began
expertly to milk the troubled cow. Ling, Tracey and Johnny Mossmoss
prowled into the woods. A few minutes later they returned.

Ling said quietly, "Somethin' you should see, Jedge."

Colin followed wonderingly to a saddled and bridled brown horse that lay
on its side and seemed to be resting. But the blackened blood, which had
run down its shoulder and gathered in a puddle between its stiff front
legs, proved that it was dead. Near the horse lay the rider--a man in a
blue uniform. His cap had fallen off, his rusting rifle lay beside him.
He was perhaps nineteen years old.

Colin could imagine what had happened. A raiding party of Yankee cavalry
had penetrated behind the Confederate lines. There had been a fight
here, and both the boy and his horse had fallen in a place where nobody
except a woodsman from Hobbs Creek would have found them.

"We'd better bury him," Colin said abruptly.

"Yeah," Ling agreed. "Want me to get some spades?"

"Will you?"

Ling went to the wagon for spades, and when the news spread, the rest of
the Wetherly unit came to view the dead soldier. The grave was dug and
the soldier laid as gently as possible in it. Watt Sackett contributed a
wood cross fastened together with buckskin. They hung the soldier's cap
on it, and, while the wondering men stood with bared heads, Colin read
from Jason Maxwell's Bible the passage that begins,

    Man that is born of a woman is of few days, and full of trouble.

Then they stripped the saddle and bridle from the dead horse, threw them
into the wagon, tied the cow on back, and continued. The ease was gone,
and so was the happiness. Accompanied by the four men from Hobbs Creek,
Colin resumed scouting three hundred yards ahead of the unit.

They stopped for lunch and a brief rest and went on. Suddenly Ling
flung himself sidewise against Colin and pushed Tracey Hamlin to the
ground. Johnny Mossmoss and Watt Sackett dropped. A second later, rifles
spoke and bullets whined like angry bees overhead.

Ling whispered, "Come on!"

He motioned Colin behind the trunk of a huge oak and crouched beside
him. With a mighty effort, Colin resumed the leadership.

"We'll fall back to the rest," he whispered.

"All right," Ling agreed.

"Come on out, Yanks!" a nearby voice snarled. "Come on out an' we'll let
ye be prisoners!"

"Blasted idjits!" Watt Sackett screamed. "Blasted idjits! We ain't
Yanks! We're goin' to help fight 'em!"

"You--" there was astonishment in the voice. "You are?"

"Yes, we are! Yes, we are! Blasted idjits! Blasted idjits!"

"We--" the voice was apologetic now, "we're sorry."

"You oughta be!"

"We'll come out if ye won't shoot."

"Won't shoot!" Watt snarled. "When I see one of you--"

"Watt!" Colin said sharply, and to the hidden spokesman, "Come on out.
We won't shoot."

They emerged from the brush, fourteen lean and sheepish settlers who
knew how to handle their firearms even though they were presently
fumbling with them. A bearded giant who, in lieu of a shirt, wore a
tattered and buttonless jacket said, "The Yanks was here."

Colin said crisply, "They aren't now."

"'Tain't our fault," the big man said truculently.

"And it isn't your fault that some of us aren't dead, either. Where's
the fighting?"

"S'all over. The Yanks are runnin' home to Mama. If they get a few more
lickin's like that one the war'll be over. You shoulda seen 'em at
Ball's Bluff yestiddy--a bunch of girls they was. Tha's Bide Dirksen's
cow ya got there."

"Where's Bide Dirksen?"

"Kil't by the Yanks. I'll take the cow."

"The cow," Colin said smoothly, "has just been requisitioned by the
Confederate Army."




  CHAPTER X

  Williamsburg, '62


Colin and his platoon arrived at the city of tents outside Williamsburg
just before noon. One of a group of artillerymen loafing beside his
field piece called, "Some more purty sojers! They'll make purty corpses,
too!"

Johnny Mossmoss stepped forward. The rest of the Hobbs Creek men swung
naturally to follow and the men from Wetherly also made ready for
battle. It had been an uninteresting winter and they were ready for some
excitement.

"Come back here!" Colin ordered.

"Aw, Jedge!" Watt Sackett said plaintively.

"There'll be no brawls. Save your ginger for the Yankees." Then he
addressed the artilleryman. "Attention!"

"My!" The artilleryman was less defiant than frightened now. "They got a
purty officer, too."

Colin turned to Jason Maxwell. "Sergeant, have a detail arrest that
man."

The artilleryman came to clumsy attention, "I was only foolin'."

"Your fooling will get you in trouble one day," Colin snapped. "Where
are Colonel Harvey's headquarters?"

"Bender's store."

"Sir!"

"Sir! Bender's store, sir." The artilleryman pointed. "Thar it be."

His men grinned openly at Colin's conquest of the insubordinate
artilleryman, but Colin was suddenly weary and depressed. The army
outside of Williamsburg was not trained. The men were lounging, sloppy,
indifferent and this artilleryman was typical of the group.

He halted in front of Bender's store and turned to his men. "Find a
place and set up camp. I'll join you later."

"Sure, Jedge," Ling said easily.

When Colin entered the store the soldiers of various ranks who were
busily at work did not even look up at his entrance. Obviously Harvey
had chosen a diligent staff.

"Captain Campbell reporting with the Wetherly platoon," he told the
soldier on guard.

"One moment, sir." The soldier disappeared. When he returned, he said,
"The colonel will see you now, sir."

Colonel Harvey was perhaps thirty years old, but he seemed a tired old
man. His face was haggard, his eyes sunken and dark with fatigue.
Obviously he was a professional soldier, perhaps a West Point graduate,
but he was also a harassed human being who had too much to do and too
little with which to do it. He looked up, unsmiling, as Colin said,
"Captain Campbell reporting with the Wetherly platoon."

"Ah, yes, Captain, we have been expecting you." Harvey indicated a
chair. "Won't you sit down?"

Colin seated himself. Harvey asked, "Do you have any knowledge of the
situation here?"

"No, sir."

Harvey sighed and spread a map on top of some scattered papers. He
pointed with a piece of paper to a section of the map.

"General McClellan has landed some eighty thousand troops here on the
James and, according to our intelligence, more are on the way. Their
ultimate objective, of course, is Richmond. If they succeed in taking
it, it's obvious that they'll be endangering the whole Confederate
cause."

"I understand."

"McClellan is waiting for reinforcements before he tries to take
Yorktown. He doesn't know, of course, that it has already been
evacuated. We hope to draw him on into the swamp area here between the
Chickahominy and the Pamunkey rivers and take a stand somewhere in this
area." He pointed with his pencil. "General Powell is coming to
reinforce us. Johnston has been severely wounded."

"I understand."

"What do you understand?" Harvey asked sharply.

"That we stop McClellan before Richmond."

"You _do_ understand." Harvey permitted himself a fleeting smile. "Do
you have any questions?"

"How much fighting has there been?"

"A lot--and all to our advantage so far. There will be much more before
the fate of Richmond is decided."

"Where do I report now?"

"Your platoon will be directly under Major Andrews. Report to him."

"Today, sir?"

"Tomorrow will be all right. I'll send a scout to guide you. He has
taken up a position on Dynamite Hill. Meanwhile draw rations from Major
Scott over there."

"Are there any doctors in camp?"

"Surely you have no wounded? I understood your platoon has been sitting
tight all winter and spring."

"No wounded. Only sore feet."

Harvey shook his head sadly. "The doctors are all with the wounded near
Richmond. The best I can offer is simple first aid."

Colin, who did not want Clem Faraday in the hands of an ignorant
corpsman, said hastily, "We'll get along."

"Good luck, Captain."

"Thank you, sir."

Colin left the store and Ling Stewart eased from the shadows to accost
him. "How'd you make out, Jedge?"

"We're moving into the front lines tomorrow."

"Good!" Ling said feelingly. "Don't care much for this place. I came to
show you where we're at."

The Wetherly platoon had encamped in a vacant lot. The wagon was drawn
up, the mules were tied to it and a fire blazed. Darnley Hamlin brought
Colin a plate heaped high with scrambled eggs and fluffy biscuits and
handed him a cup of hot coffee. Colin stared in astonishment. In a place
where there should be little flour, no eggs, and certainly no coffee,
the Wetherly platoon had produced an abundance of all.

At daybreak the next morning a weary-looking scout who carried his rifle
as though it were an extension of his arm, shuffled into camp and
saluted sloppily.

Obviously no waster of words, he said, "C'mon."

Colin asked, "Are you taking us to Major Andrews?"

"Yep."

Past the staring soldiers, they started south from Williamsburg. Colin
shuddered. The stares were neither apathetic nor meaningless. Rather, it
was as though men watching others depart for the battle lines were
silently congratulating themselves because they did not have to go. They
passed clearings where farmers who still had horses were using them to
work their farms, and those who had none were working by hand. Women and
children toiled beside their men, and nobody bothered to look up.
Passing soldiers were too familiar a sight to command attention.

Three hours later they reached a farmhouse with a dozen wagons standing
outside. There was a picket line of horses and of mules, and soldiers
bustled about.

The scout said, "Here y'are."

Colin met Major Andrews, a black-haired man who fulfilled his army
duties with the same grim persistence that he had formerly devoted to
civilian affairs.

He nodded briefly. "Leave your wagon here and relieve Lieutenant Trevor
on Dynamite Hill, Captain."

"Where's Dynamite Hill?"

Andrews pointed. "Right over there."

Colin stared wonderingly at Dynamite Hill, a wooded knoll exactly like a
dozen he had known at Hobbs Creek. Again he had to force his mind to
grasp the realities of war. One rode horses on such hills and ran hound
packs on them. One definitely did not climb them for the purpose of
killing other men; there was nothing whatsoever on such a hill worth
even a fist fight.

Andrews asked impatiently, "Do you understand, Captain?"

"I understand." Colin turned to Jason Maxwell. "Sergeant, you and Clem
Faraday stay here to guard the mules and wagon."

"Captain!" There was anguish in Jason Maxwell's eyes.

"It's an order," Colin said firmly.

"Yes, Captain."

Colin and the rest of his men filed up Dynamite Hill. They met
Lieutenant Trevor and his bored platoon and learned that none of the
enemy had been sighted. Then they took up positions. They stole sheepish
glances at each other and were embarrassed. It made no more sense to
wait on Dynamite Hill than it did to drill at Wetherly barracks, and the
first hour was a fretful one.

Then Ling said, "Look, Jedge."

At first Colin did not see, and then he did. There were men on the hill
facing theirs, men who carried rifles and wore blue uniforms, and they
were slowly but purposefully advancing. Colin's tongue went dry in his
mouth and his eyes burned. Surely the Yankees did not intend to come
on, to kill and be killed. They would turn back.

"Get down, Jedge!" Ling whispered.

Colin crouched behind a tree, and he noted that all his men had taken
cover. He heard rifle and musket fire break out in adjoining positions,
but kept his entranced eyes on the attacking enemy. They reached the
foot of the hill ahead of Colin's unit and they started up Dynamite
Hill. Colin was aware of his men shooting and knew that he himself fired
his 58 Worthington, but he did not know if he hit anyone. He watched a
blue-clad Yankee, shot through the neck, spin around and around and
finally crumple in a heap. He heard bullets singing near.

Then the Yankees were gone, running back up their hill and disappearing
among the trees. Colin was brought out of shock by Ling's furious,
"Jedge!"

Colin turned to see Tom Tyler lying on his back. There was a hole in his
forehead, a tiny hole that surely could not harm a man grown, and a drop
of blood formed near it. Without uttering a sound, Colin felt that he
was screaming. There was something he must do about this, something he
had to do. Then he knew what it was, and his speech to Hope Tyler formed
in his mind even as he became aware that Tom was dead.

They held Dynamite Hill for three days. For the sake of that small hill,
Tom Tyler and McDonald Murdock were dead, Marvin Teague had lost his
left arm at the elbow and Johnny Mossmoss was crippled for life. They
had defended this insignificant hill, and now they were abandoning it to
the Yankees. A new line would be formed nearer Williamsburg.

Back in camp, which now seemed a model of order and luxury, Colin was
told Colonel Harvey wanted to see him at once. Without stopping even to
wash, Colin rushed to Bender's store.

There was sympathy in the colonel's haggard face as Colin reported in.
"It was rough, eh?" he asked. "And yet, you know, when the history of
this war is written, the skirmishes around Dynamite Hill will be
considered one of the many infinitesmal victories that made up a
victorious battle."

"Victory?" Colin asked dazedly.

"There is usually nothing grand and glorious about victory. It simply
means that a few more men were killed on one side than on another, a
slightly better position gained. But I did not summon you here to tell
you this." He looked directly into Colin's eyes. "I've had a telegram
from your brother Macklyn, under whom I've had the honor of serving.
Your father has had a stroke and is not expected to live."

Colin gasped.

Colonel Harvey murmured his sympathy. "Your brother asks that you be
allowed to go home on a short leave. I can grant you a leave now. We are
re-grouping now and so are the Yanks, and the trains are running from
Richmond to Denbury."

Colin could not take it all in. "How--" he began.

Colonel Harvey rose and shook his hand. "You'd better leave right away
for Richmond. Please extend my sympathy to your brother and his wife.
Here is your pass."

Colin wired from Richmond that he would be in Denbury the next day and
Betsie was at the station to meet him. For a moment he hardly knew her,
she was so changed. Her face was drawn with lines of anxiety and sorrow.
Her hair was streaked with gray. But her carriage was proud as she
walked quickly toward Colin and her welcoming hug was as affectionate as
ever. When they pulled back from their embrace to scrutinize each other,
Colin saw that there was tears running down her cheeks.

"Oh, Colin," she said, "I'm so glad you're here. But you are too late to
see your father. He died yesterday. Your telegram arrived an hour or so
before he died, and it made him happy to know that you were all right
and that you were coming. He fell asleep with a smile on his lips and
never woke up. He had been fearful--you see, we are doubly stricken."

"Doubly stricken?" Colin mumbled, his tongue thick and his throat choked
with sorrow.

"Your father's stroke was brought on by the news that Ralph had been
killed in action."

Betsie and Macklyn's only son! He had no words to express his compassion
as he pressed her to him and cried. Death in old age brought with it a
grief softened by inevitability, but the death of a boy killed in battle
was only harsh. Colin raged against fate, against the cruelty and
stupidity of men. No wonder Betsie wept. She would weep whenever she
thought of the baby boy she had held in her arms, the child she had
raised to manhood, the proud young cadet she had sent to war.

"Betsie," he said finally, "if I had known--why didn't you let me know
sooner? Is Macklyn here? Were you alone through all this?"

"Macklyn came two days ago and sent for you as soon as he arrived. He
has been in the West, in Tennessee where the war has been going badly,
and he couldn't get away sooner. He is waiting at Quail Wings for us--we
should go."

They climbed into the carriage. Toby, with a sympathetic smile on his
face held the door for them. At a glance, Colin saw that the carriage
needed paint and that Toby's livery was frayed. The horses looked bony
and overworked.

Settling into the cushions, he took Betsie's hand and asked, "When did
you get the news of Ralph?"

"Two weeks ago. He had been put in charge of a company of marines and
they were chasing Tom Dare who had commandeered a frigate--"

"Tom Dare! What has he got to do with it?" Colin asked.

"Well, you know he had been in charge of the supply center at Dare's
Landing and naturally a good deal of money went through his hands. He
evidently decided that he had backed the losing side and if he wanted to
keep his fortune intact he had better get away quickly. Jeannie went
with him."

Colin remembered a conversation with Tom Dare before the war, nearly two
years ago, in which Tom had said, "The South cannot possibly win." "Do
you remember that Christmas dinner at Quail Wings when Tom was so full
of Southern patriotism?" he asked Betsie. "I reminded him then that he
was contradicting his previous views. But why should he go to all that
trouble? He could have gone north at any time before the war started and
even afterward. He could have acquired safe conduct."

"He not only deserted, Colin. He took Confederate gold with him. Before
the war he must have thought out his pose as a rabid rebel. Anyway,
that's why they sent a ship after him. The ship was sunk with all hands
lost." In a muffled voice she added, "And Ralph was on the ship."

"Anything for a dollar, honest or dishonest," Colin said bitterly. "And
that Ralph should die because of that sneaking--"

"Don't!" Betsie interrupted. "Please, now that you know the whole story,
let's not talk of it any more. I can learn to face the fact that Ralph
is dead but I can't bear to think about the episode itself."

"I understand, Betsie." She was right. To dwell on the injustice of fate
was to go mad. "How had things been at Quail Wings before this
happened?" he asked in an attempt to find more solid ground.

"It's been lonely, of course," Betsie answered, "but your father and I
were too busy to mope. Several of the slaves ran away and went north.
Most of them your father loaned to the government for factory work in
Norfolk. There are only five left at Quail Wings now--and only one for
the house. So, of course, there was plenty of work for both of us."

"That house is so huge," Colin said.

"We closed off all but five rooms last fall when it got cold. But even
so--"

Colin glanced at her hands. The nails were broken; the skin was
roughened. He took them and raised them to his lips. "You are a wonder,
Betsie," he said.

Knowing how brief their time together would be, Colin left Betsie and
Macklyn to themselves as much as he could until after the funeral. After
crowded army life, with its absolute lack of privacy, he was glad to be
by himself. Riding through the fields, most of them now gone to weeds,
on the elderly mare which was the best mount Quail Wings stables now
provided, he silently nursed his grief.

Macklyn had to get back to his command in Tennessee immediately after
the funeral. But before he left the two brothers went into their
father's study together. Colin had an idea he wanted to propose to
Macklyn before he left.

"I'm worried about Betsie," he told Macklyn. "With Linda out West and
Lorena working in the hospital at Richmond, she'll be so alone now that
Father's gone. I'd like to suggest that she stay at Campbell Hill. It's
safer up in the mountains and Zack and Nell would love to have her
there. She'd have an easier time of it."

"It's very kind of you to suggest it, Colin," Macklyn answered. He
looked so worn by care and sorrow that Colin wondered he could make the
effort to speak, but his fine dark eyes still shone with pride and
intelligence. "By all means suggest it to her. It would relieve me a
good deal if she would do it, but I'm quite sure she won't. She'll feel
it's her duty to stay here as custodian of Quail Wings."

"I'll try to persuade her, anyway," Colin answered. "Before you leave,
could you give me a rough picture of how the war is going? I only know
what's happening in front of my own nose and that seems on the whole
successful."

"Yes, the fighting goes well for us in Virginia," Macklyn answered. "But
we are losing on other fronts. Soon we will be completely blockaded
unless by some miracle we manage to maintain our hold on the
Mississippi. It takes a while to feel the effects, but when the blockade
is complete we will be slowly squeezed into submission. It is clear now
that England will not help us. It isn't hopeless yet, but I'm afraid it
soon will be."

Colin groaned. This was what he had feared before the war ever began.

Macklyn stood up, his back held straight and proud. "I'll say goodbye to
Betsie and then I must go. It has been wonderful to see you for this
little time, even if we were brought together by father's death. In a
way, I am glad he died now--that he did not live to see what I fear is
in store for us." Macklyn had not once referred to his son's death in
the two days Colin had been at Quail Wings.

"Yes, he was too old and too stubborn to adjust easily--and too proud to
accept defeat."

Macklyn grasped Colin's hand. "Goodbye, Colin. Good luck!"

"God bless you, Macklyn. Goodbye!"

Colin himself would have to take the train back to Richmond the
following night. He wanted to visit Campbell Hill before he left, and he
must have a glimpse of Ann to carry back with him. He proposed to Betsie
that she should come with him--it would be a change for her and their
last chance to be together. And, once there, he hoped to persuade her to
stay.

Betsie came with him gladly. Their progress was slow on the old horses
at their disposal--they had, in fact, to change horses at Wetherly--and
they talked of many things. A little color crept into Betsie's cheeks
and a smile played on her lips as they recalled happier times. And,
finally, something of the old teasing Betsie came back as she asked
Colin, "How is Ann Stewart?"

"That is my most important reason for coming."

"I thought so. You haven't changed then?"

"No. I think I never will."

"I can't blame you. She is a rare person and a lovely one."

Colin had only a few hours to spend at Campbell Hill, and he had much to
do. First, he sent Zack for McDonald Murdock's wife, a stolid woman
whose silent sorrow might be a comfort to Hope Tyler. Then he took the
two women into his study and told them gently that their husbands had
been killed and that they had died bravely in helping to secure a
Confederate victory. As he had thought, the two widows, one young and
timid, the other middle-aged and phlegmatic, each gained comfort from
companionship.

Then he took time to visit a little with Zack and Nell and Dab and Elva,
to pat Robin on the nose and offer him a carrot and to examine Dab's
vegetable garden and Nell's rose bushes. Campbell Hill, at least, was
thriving.

At last he went to Ann. To his surprise, he met her halfway to the
Stewart clearing. She sat beneath a huge pine as if she were waiting.

"Ann!" he called in astonishment.

She smiled at him as he hastily dismounted and came to her side. "I knew
you were coming, Colin. Those hounds of yours don't bark like that for
anyone but you."

He could only look and look at her, her cheeks flushed with pleasure and
her eyes sparkling with excitement. As she gazed back at him, the smile
slowly faded from her lips and she said, "Colin, what is it? You look
almost ill. What has happened?"

"It's not Ling," he assured her quickly, sitting down beside her. "He
was fine four days ago when I last saw him." He went on to tell her
about Dynamite Hill, and about Ralph and his father. She watched him
anxiously.

"Oh, how terrible!" she said softly when he had finished. "I'm so sorry
for you, Colin, and for Betsie and your brother. And for Hope and--" She
fought to keep back her tears, closing her eyes in the effort.

Colin's arms were around her and they clung to one another in tenderness
and sorrow, wordless at first and then murmuring all the endearments
they had held back for so long.

At the sound of a twig cracking, they drew apart hastily. Why must he
conceal, Colin thought bitterly, a feeling that was as natural to him as
breathing? In a moment, Enos Pollard came into view, a rifle slung over
his shoulder. To Colin's amazement, he called out a greeting and waved
to them before disappearing into the woods. Colin turned to Ann. "Your
father is a different person," he said. "What has happened to him?"

Ann smiled. "Yes," she said, "that is the only good result of the war
that I can think of. Evidently the responsibility that was put on him
when Ling went away has slowly strengthened his mind. Soon after Ling
left he began to do things--little things at first--on his own. Now he's
so much recovered that he often tells _me_ what to do. I'm glad now that
I had the money you paid for the house put in his name. I've always
believed this would happen some day."

"I've worried about how lonely it was for you," Colin said. "Can you
talk things over with him?"

"Oh, yes. He still has long, silent spells now and then but most often
we chatter away like anyone else. We have many years of silence to make
up for."

"That's the best possible news I could take back to Ling. How are the
boys? He'll want to know all about them. I wish I had time to see them
myself but I have to leave Denbury for Richmond tonight."

"Tell him the boys are fine. I've taught Jeffrey to read and Lingo is
growing like a weed. We've acquired a wife for their dog and the
puppies are due now. The boys are terribly excited about that. But they
miss Ling and talk of him all the time."

"I'll tell him, Ann." He took her hand. "I must start back now. Will you
walk with me to Campbell Hill? Betsie is there and I know she would like
to see you. I'm hoping to persuade her to stay there now that she's
alone at Quail Wings."

"Oh, I wish she would. Yes, I'll walk with you."

"How does your father feel about my having bought the house? Was he
upset?"

"He's very pleased that it's in good hands."

Just before they reached the clearing at Campbell Hill, they turned to
one another to make their real farewell. It was wordless--they dared not
speak what their wildly beating hearts would have them say. They clung
together in one brief, desperate embrace. The past was dead; the future
might not exist. Because of the terrible yesterdays and the threatening
tomorrows, they would be forgiven this moment.




  CHAPTER XI

  Interlude


Ling worried when he went into a fight. He did not worry for himself, or
that he might be killed, because every creature that did not die
naturally was sure to be killed. But, without him, what would happen to
Ann and his two sons? That was the question tormenting him. Although
Ann's father had recovered, he was not a young man; he couldn't be
depended on.

A dozen times he had tried to talk to Colin about Ann, but he could not.
One man did not tell another man, "I know you're in love with my wife. I
saw it in your eyes before you knew it yourself. I can't blame you
because I'm in love with her, too, though I never knew how much till I
had to go away from her. If I knew you would take care of Ann and our
sons, I would rest easy in my mind, no matter how many fights I got
into."

A man did not say such things, and, unsaid, they weighed on Ling.

Not even his deep anxiety for his family drove Ling to the brink of
insanity like the deadly routine of camping during the long waits
between battles. To escape that maddening inactivity, he and his two
companions, Watt Sackett and Tracey Hamlin, were now twenty miles
behind Union lines, flirting openly with death. If they were caught,
they instantly would be shot. The rules of war did not apply to raiders
who gave up the protection of a uniform for the obscurity of ordinary
dark clothing. Colin had forbidden these raids, but he had yet to find a
way to prevent them.

The night was dimly lit by a thin slice of moon which shone through
occasional openings in fleecy white clouds. They were not storm clouds
but they presaged a storm. A thin, cold wind plucked ghoulishly at the
few leaves left on the artillery-battered trees. A fire winked in the
distance. Did men huddle around it for cheer and warmth? Or was it a
trap, a decoy to lure night-raiding Rebs into the rifle fire of alert
Yankees?

Ling's hand stole to the sheathed knife at his belt. A knife was the
best weapon for this sort of work; shooting attracted attention and any
action was certain to be at close quarters. At the same time, Ling
wondered uneasily what had come over him. Running the forest at home, he
had never bothered to feel his knife or look to his rifle, for he had
always known whether the knife was there, whether the rifle was loaded,
and if it needed fresh priming. They were merely minor details that had
never worried him. The change went far deeper.

On Hobbs Creek, he had helped to repel an occasional party of pillaging
Cherokees or white renegades. He had fought with savage enthusiasm, and
he had shot any raider with the feeling that it was the right thing to
do. Although he had thought he would do the same in war and kill
Yankees just as happily, there was a vast difference.

He had discovered this discrepancy on Dynamite Hill, where he had killed
one of the advancing Yankees with his first shot, reloaded, killed a
second, reloaded again, and wounded a third while the Yankees were
retreating. Even while he was reloading for his second victim, and
despite the fact that his aim did not falter as he shot, he knew that
this was and always would be a distasteful task.

It had taken Ling, who still shot with deadly precision in battle, a
long while to understand why he shuddered every time he killed a Yankee.
Now he knew that the Cherokees and renegades who came to Hobbs Creek
threatened not only him but also his family. He could kill them with as
little compunction as he crushed the heads of the rattlesnakes that
occasionally ventured into his yard.

The Yankees posed no direct threat to Ling and his family. They were not
like rattlesnakes. They were just men like himself. Though Ling could
not understand the reasons for war, he finally understood why Colin
considered it senseless.

Suddenly he heard Watt Sackett whisper, "What do you think, Tracey?"

"Can't see 'nough to know. We'll have to get closer."

"How 'bout you, Ling?"

"Let's move up."

The cold wind, making hollow and ghostly noises in the shell-shredded
trees, sighed in their faces, plucked at their cheeks and moaned away in
search of something else to play with. In the darkness, they almost
stumbled over a cannon tipped on its side and their feet sank into the
soft earth of the graves that had been recently dug for the cannon's
dead crew. Ling's hand slipped again to his knife and, even though he
found it comforting, a cold dread gripped his heart. He could not avoid
what he was doing any more than Watt and Tracey could avoid their
actions, but he did not want to use that knife on a fellow human.

As they neared the fire, Ling fought a great desire to turn back. He did
not fear what was ahead, but if Colin were with him now, he knew he
would be able to speak the words that had for so long been in his heart.
But Colin was not with him and there was no turning back. There never
was. They could now see the fire plainly, built from trunks and branches
of the shelled trees. On the ground rested ten shadowy lumps that were
ten men sleeping and, far enough from the fire so that only their
outlines showed, a dozen horses stood on a picket line. Counting one man
for each horse, there were twelve men. Ten slept while two stood guard.

Tracey whispered, "They must be rec-roots."

"It don't follow," Ling contradicted. "We jest happen to be a smart hop
behin't their lines. They don't expect no prowlin' here'bouts."

"That's it. That's it," Watt Sackett agreed.

The wind, passing by, continued to feel at their faces as though seeking
something it might snatch away before going on. One of the sleeping men
rose, took a pipe from his pocket, filled it, lighted it with a brand
from the fire, and sat down to puff contentedly.

The conviction strengthened in Ling's mind that Tracey was at least
partly right. These men, a Union cavalry patrol, might not be raw
recruits but they lacked experience, for they had picketed their horses
on the downwind side of the fire. The wind itself would help muffle any
noises arising from the picket line.

"Le's try for the picket line," Watt whispered.

Tracey said caustically, "Now ain't you the smarty-pants? What'd we come
for?"

Ling whispered, "You got to beller, go find 'nother bull."

No further conversation was necessary. This was an old story, one that
each of the three knew by heart. All knew their parts so well that there
was no need for rehearsal. Because he was short, Watt Sackett might aim
at the throat and seize the shoulders instead. Ling and Tracey
alternated in knocking the guards out--it must always be done
silently--before they raided. If there were two guards, each took one.
Watt, a farmer with both a genius and familiarity in handling animals,
quieted the aroused horses or mules until the three were able to get
under way. If there were more than two guards, they gave up and sought
another Yankee camp that offered better chances for success. They walked
now towards the picket line, hidden by darkness.

One of the two sentries joined the man who was smoking beside the fire.
The other sat disconsolately on a pile of saddles with his back turned
to the cold wind. Ling became more certain that these soldiers lacked
battle experience. It was a long way back to the Rebel lines but, even
so, the horses should have been saddled and ready. Frequently, in a
single flying attack, the Rebels had swept farther than this and
seasoned veterans were always ready for anything.

It was Ling's turn to quiet the sentry, and Tracey and Watt waited
expectantly as he slithered forward on his belly. Silent as a crawling
snake in soft earth, he never averted his eyes from the sentry, who
still kept his back to the wind. Then another great and troubling worry
began to torture him. He hoped he would not have to kill the sentry. It
was far better simply to steal the horses without killing anyone. If
those thefts alarmed the Yankees, and forced them to alert more watches
and station more men behind the front lines, they might even serve a
military purpose.

Ling cared little about this matter. He was unable--few men possess such
an ability--to see the war in its entirety. He was just one individual
in the southern army pitted against his counterpart in the northern
corps.

Now he could plainly see the men around the fire, and he heard them
talking. Partly because they were still some distance away, and partly
because he was concentrating on the sentry, their voices came to him
only in low-pitched murmurs. Ling drew the knife with a heavy hilt from
its sheath and made ready to throw it.

Accidentally he put his hand on a dead stick that cracked sharply
beneath his weight. He halted breathlessly, wondering what the noise
might provoke, and raised himself so that he would be able to spring
erect and throw his knife better.

The sentry, little more than a boy, leaped from his pile of saddles and
called sharply, "Who's there?"

"See somethin', Buster?" one of the men near the fire called, and the
other turned to stare toward the picket line.

"Heard something," Buster replied.

"Want we should have a look-see?"

"Wait."

Sixty seconds dragged by like sixty hours, and presently Buster turned
toward the fire.

"Reckon it was nothing."

Ling crawled hurriedly forward. The young sentry had been alerted and
assured himself that it was just a false alarm. For the next few seconds
he would not be quite as keen as he had been. Now was the time. Flipping
the knife so the blade was in his hand, Ling was almost upon him before
he turned. Using the hilt of his knife as a club, Ling smashed it down
on the boy's head. Instantly Ling dropped the knife to encircle his
throat with his muscular hands. Already dazed, presently the sentry went
limp as a fresh-killed deer and Ling eased the gasping boy down to the
ground.

As though they had sprung from the earth itself, Watt and Tracey were
beside him. They had already taken three bridles from the pile near the
saddles and Tracey pressed one into Ling's hand. Then, even while he
soothed the nervous horses with soft words, Watt chose a mount and
began to bridle it; there was no time for saddles.

Ling selected a bay, one with only a small white star on its forehead.
Marked in this way, it would be an obscure target. Leading his horse, he
walked softly along the picket line and helped cut the tie ropes of the
others.

"Ready?" he asked softly.

"Ready," Watt whispered.

"Set," Tracey said.

Ling vaulted to the back of his startled mount and kicked him in the
ribs. He whirled behind the freed horses and yelled, "Eee-eee!"

One of the soldiers sitting beside the fire jumped up and fired his
rifle. The bullet sang past Ling's ear, and had he known nothing about
bullets, he might have supposed that he had narrowly escaped death. But
the bullet missed by at least six inches, a comfortable margin. Sleeping
men scrambled up and someone shouted inanely. Ling dropped far enough
behind the running horses to see how Watt and Tracey were faring, and
when he saw them hurrying but not frantic, he kicked his horse into a
gallop.

Six rifles cracked. Five more fired at sporadic intervals, but the
surprised and probably frightened soldiers were aiming at shadows. Ling
could see by the muzzle flashes that at least four of the rifles were
aimed at right angles to the fleeing men.

One of the driven horses stumbled and went down. His high-pitched
whistle of fear was startlingly loud in the night. The other horses
pounded around their fallen comrade. Ling neither paused nor thought of
going back. If they did not get out of here quickly they would lose
their stolen mounts, and their lives. If they maintained a gallop, it
was unlikely that more horses would go down because horses have an
instinct rather than an eye for obstacles. Even in darkness, when driven
full speed, what they cannot go through or over, they go around.

Descending a low ridge that effectively screened the fire, Ling drew to
a walk. The horse that had fallen, obviously not seriously hurt, caught
up and trotted past to join his companions. No longer driven, the others
fell to a trot and then a walk. Ling swerved his mount to where Watt and
Tracey had already joined forces.

"Horse thiefs!" he scoffed. "You two have really sunk lowdown! I
mistrust a rattlesnake won't talk to you when we get back to Hobbs
Crick!"

"Sure!" Watt agreed. "Sure, sure, sure! An' who helped us steal hosses?"

"An' who ever heard of a rattlesnake talkin'?" Tracey demanded.

"Halt!"

The ringing challenge came out of the darkness, and Ling reined his
horse to a slower walk as his hand dipped again to the hilt of his
knife. Tracey and Watt swung away, so that a volley would not cut all
three of them down. Ling strained his eyes into the gloom.

Presently he saw their challenger, a shadow in the darkness, and when
the thin slice of moon shone briefly through an opening in the clouds,
moonlight glinted on bayonets. There were a considerable number of men,
almost certainly Union soldiers, and they were directly across the line
of march that the horses must take.

Ling put a quaver in his voice, "If you be Rebs, leave us come in and
give up."

"We ain't Rebs."

"Neither be we. We're bringin' horses from Bromley Haddonfield and
Gener'l Martin says we should bring these on to Cunnel Eustace. He wants
'em real bad."

"Why'nt ya say so in the fust place?" the man snapped.

"Would if we'd knowed who ya was."

"Ya know now! Eustace is 'bout a quarter mile ahead an' a quarter east.
Watch out ya don't blunder into the Reb lines."

"We'll be careful."

Making no attempt to hide, the three drove their pillaged horses past.
Ling grinned to himself. The simulated call of a lonesome hen turkey
would usually deceive a gobbler in quest of a mate, but turkeys were not
the only creatures that could be deceived. Men could, too, if one used
the right words, and Colonel Eustace commanded the regiment in this
sector facing the Wetherly platoon. It was very sociable of the Yankee,
Ling reflected, to tell them exactly where Eustace might be found. One
half hour before dawn, they were back in their own camp.

The camp was pitched on a wooded hill. For the most part it was a tent
city, but some men, including all those from Hobbs Creek, preferred
bark-thatched huts that were warmer in cool weather than tents, cooler
in the heat, and in which stone chimneys and fireplaces were easier to
build. The camp fronted a grassy meadow where bored sentries stood at
intervals.

Darnley Hamlin, sentry for the Wetherly platoon, hooted at them and
yelled, "Ain't ya got 'nough trouble 'thout stirrin' more up? The
Jedge's mad as a banty rooster."

"Where is he?"

"In his shanty. Git up there 'fore he comes down here."

They rode to Colin's cabin. Jason Maxwell, who had finally been
permitted to fight and had come through twelve battles without a mishap,
looked sidewise at them and continued to mend his shoes. The hard-driven
horses were eager to wander into the meadow and crop grass. Colin
stormed out of his hut.

"Where have you three been?"

Ling reddened, looking at the ground, and shuffled his feet. "Jest
'round," he said.

"Have you been raiding again?"

"'Twan't a raid!" Tracey protested. "We was jest jauntin' up to camp
when we see these hosses runnin' loose an' we thought--"

"Yes," Colin said caustically, "you thought, 'here are some horses whose
owners must be dead. Being patriotic citizens and soldiers of the
Confederacy, we'll take them to someone who can use them.' Is that it?"

Watt Sackett said happily, "That's it! That's it!"

"And I suppose you weren't behind Yankee lines?"

"A mite," Ling admitted.

"Next time this happens all three of you will be ordered to the guard
house and kept in solitary. I mean it!" He stalked off furiously.

They knew that he meant what he said. And they also knew that the threat
of the guard house wouldn't stop them from raiding again.




  CHAPTER XII

  Disaster


In the column filing past, men had their feet wrapped in blankets, rags,
cow hides, or anything else they had been able to find. Of those who had
shoes, some carried them and some wore them. One of the latter was
jeering at a gaunt and bearded soldier who carried his shoes in his left
hand and his rifle in his right as he trudged along the dusty road.

"Right nice of ya to save 'em, Sammy. When ya get yerself kil't, kin I
have 'em? Huh? Kin I?"

The gaunt soldier made no reply. The years of war were not anything that
might be counted on the fingers of one hand but something to be reckoned
in ages, and the bearded soldier had been marching throughout all of
them. He had heard a million cannons roar, a million rifles crack, a
million bits of advice, and all he really wanted was some place where he
might sit down, rest his aching feet, and fill his empty stomach.

Carrying his shoes was a mechanical action, something he did without
thinking, for the routine of war had been so relentlessly hammered into
his brain that he no longer found it necessary to think. The pattern was
invariably the same; fight, rest, march, and fight again. It was
logical that shoes wore out on the feet and did not wear if carried in
the hand. A man should not wear them if he could be barefoot. Eventually
he would find himself in a position where the unshod could not run and
were, therefore, killed or captured.

Save for an occasional new uniform that stood out like a mirror
sparkling in the sun--the mark of a newly arrived recruit--the soldiers'
clothing was faded and patched with strips of canvas, blankets or cloth.
The column's artillery, mud-spattered and weather-worn, was pulled, not
by the big sleek horses that had so briskly wheeled the cannons into
position when the war started, but by spiritless nags. The supply wagons
were battered; on those with tops, the canvas was sagging and patched.
The horses and mules assigned to transport would have been scorned by
the poorest farmer before the war. The officers, scarcely
distinguishable from the men, were also walking.

Colin's eyes were bitter as the column filed past. This was what he had
envisioned when the first war clouds appeared. Men had been killed or
injured permanently; wives and children, mothers and fathers, were
bereft and heartbroken; goods had been wasted and much property had been
ruined. The war had exacted a price that nobody could ever pay.

Colin no longer retained even a faint doubt that the Confederacy must
suffer defeat; the South had little left except a steadily weakening
will to fight. The best they could hope for were lenient terms; even
the brilliant General Lee was fighting battles of desperation. Colin
glanced at the ground and smiled sardonically.

It was he who had undertaken to lead the Wetherly platoon into battle on
the assumption that they would fare well under his leadership. Of the
men who had gathered at the Wetherly barracks only himself, Ling,
Tracey, Watt, and Jason Maxwell remained. The rest--only two days ago
they had laid young Clem Faraday in an unmarked grave on the unnamed
hill where he had fallen--were either dead or at home, wounded.

Colin hailed a passing soldier so young that his beard was hardly
visible. "Tommy, will you tell Sergeant Maxwell that I want to see him?"

"Right away, Captain."

The young soldier scooted off, and a few minutes later Jason Maxwell
presented himself to Colin. Of the men from the original platoon, only
Jason remained unchanged by war. Deadly in battle, but compassionate to
friend and enemy alike when battle was over, and always devout, Jason
was the one man Colin knew who had found himself in war. "Yes, Captain?"
he now asked.

"Any word from Ling, Tracey and Watt?"

"No, sir."

"This is the sixth day they have been missing. They never go for more
than two or three days," Colin said anxiously.

"I know, Captain. I still don't see how they managed to get away. I wish
I had locked 'em up."

"It isn't your fault."

"Shall I send a scout to find them?"

"No. Even if we were able to spare one, it's pointless to risk a scout,
too. But they're under arrest when they return."

"Yes, Captain."

"How is the platoon?"

"No worse than you'd expect, sir."

"Is anyone ill?"

"Private Haplan is subject to fevers. Of course, he's sixty-eight years
old. He should be sent home, for his own sake and our's too. He slows
all of us up."

"We have several who find it hard going, don't we?"

"Yes, but none as bad as Haplan." Jason Maxwell, who remembered the
Wetherly platoon when no other unit in the army could march farther or
faster, smiled sadly.

"I'll see Colonel Andrews and have Private Haplan sent home," Colin
promised.

He wondered why Andrews, the same tenacious man the Wetherly platoon had
first met on Dynamite Hill, should have come unscathed through bitter
fighting when so many other good men had been killed. He never spared
himself, was always to be found where the fighting was hottest and
always led by example. Colin shrugged. Just as inexplicably, neither he
nor Jason Maxwell had suffered even a minor wound. He did not have the
answer. Probably the soldier's assumption that you died when the bullet
or shell had your name on it was as good an explanation as any.

Colin glanced toward the road up which Ling and Tracey and Watt would
come if they returned. His worry mounted. He had warned them that they
would be thrown in the guardhouse if they made any more of their raids,
and within their hearing he had told Jason Maxwell to arrest them if
they tried to leave camp. But they had gone. Sick at heart, he rose and
made his way to Colonel Andrews' tent.

He found Andrews bent over a map spread out upon a makeshift table. The
years and his promotion from Major to Colonel had changed him little.
But shared hardships and perils had taught both Colin and Andrews deep
mutual respect and had done away with the formality that originally both
had observed with care.

Andrews said companionably, "Hello, Colin."

"Good morning, Len. How goes it?"

"Couldn't be better." If Andrews were the last man in the Confederate
Army, he would still fight. "What's on your mind?"

"I have a man, Private Haplan, who should be sent home."

"Can he get up to the front?"

"Probably, but he'll never get away if we have to skip."

"We have quite a few who aren't exactly agile."

"A sick man cannot shoot accurately."

"That's true," Andrews agreed, "and we have no ammunition to waste. Send
Haplan home. Anything else new?"

"Ling Stewart, Watt Sackett and Tracey Hamlin aren't back yet."

Andrews nodded. "One of these days those raiding boys of yours are going
to walk into a hornet's nest and get stung. Why didn't you stop them?"

"I ordered their arrest if they tried to leave, but they slipped out."

"Well, I don't see what you can do about that. Are you going to arrest
them when they come back?"

"I am."

"Good. We can't have every man in this army fighting the war his own
way. Also, we have undertaken some strategic retreats of late. I believe
Lee's luring the Yankees into a trap."

"I hope so."

"Why don't you get some Major's stripes for your uniform, Colin? You
could."

Colin grinned. "I'm too weak to hold them up."

"You and your blasted platoon." Andrews matched Colin's grin. "Is there
some reason why you must stick with it?"

"Yes."

"You don't care to advance, to cover yourself with glory, to emerge as
one of the distinguished heroes of this war?"

"That's right."

"Well, go ahead and send Haplan home."

"How about a replacement?"

Andrews said dubiously, "We're not exactly overburdened with
replacements. All I will promise is the best I can do."

"Thanks. Thanks a lot."

"You're welcome, Colin."

Colin returned to his quarters, sent for Jason Maxwell, and asked, "Will
you send Private Haplan in?"

Haplan shuffled in, a tall, gaunt man whose thinning hair and straggly
beard seemed always to have been brown streaked with gray. His eyes were
watery, his chin small, his leathery face wrinkled, and he gave the
impression that, when noses were allotted, there had been a very small
one left for Private Haplan. A farmer by trade, he was ill at ease even
in this tattered splendor, which was the best Colin could present. "Ya
sent fer me, Cap'n?"

"What's your first name, Private?" he asked gently.

"Ira, Cap'n."

"Well, Ira, you're going home."

"T'see my missus?" Haplan inquired eagerly.

"To stay."

"But--" He was bewildered. "But I come to shoot the Yanks that kil't
m'two boys an' Arno. He's m'daughter's man."

"I know." Colin remained gentle. He did not want to hurt this man if he
could avoid doing so. "But war is war and an army must travel."

"I thunk so," Haplan said miserably. "Knowed I was slowin' 'em down
even when I wa'nt ailin'." Then he brightened. "All right, Cap'n. I
can't fight, but I'll go plant crops fer them as can."

He extended a gnarled hand. Colin shook it. Ira Haplan said feelingly,
"Bye, Cap'n, an' may the Lord bless ya'."

"And you."

"I'll ask Parson Skelts to say a word fer ya' ever' day."

"Thank you, Private Haplan."

When he left, Colin sat down and stared at the tent wall. Was there a
time before the war began, he wondered? There must have been, for there
had once been many healthy young men. Now the world around him was made
up largely of the old, the unfit and the very young. But even the very
young were not young any more. Human age was measured in experience, and
even though they might still be in their teens, the very young men who
faced each other across the battle lines were older than their
grandfathers.

The next morning, the Wetherly platoon went back into battle. Colin's
heart was heavy as he led his men forward. Watt, Tracey and Ling were
still missing. Except for Jason Maxwell and himself, his command
consisted of old men and young boys. The slaughter of the innocents, he
thought. They were not veterans, though about half had been involved in
one or more minor skirmishes.

Andrews dropped back to walk beside him. Colin warmed to this man who
could not conceive of letting go. Andrews peered from beneath his
jutting black brows.

"Maybe we'll get 'em this time," he said.

"And maybe we won't."

"Don't be a pessimist, Colin. War's done a lot to us. But it has not
left them unscarred."

Colin inclined his head backwards. "Take another look at our army."

"Bullets fired by fourteen- and sixty-year-olds are just as deadly,"
Andrews pointed out. "Besides, this has become an orphan outfit. We
still have some crack troops."

"We'd better have. Where are we going?"

Andrews shrugged. "We report at Berry Knob to General Drummond, who
should be in some old men's home, and put ourselves at his disposal. I
suppose it is a holding or diversionary action. Drummond wouldn't be
trusted with anything else."

For a moment Colin did not reply. He thought curiously that ordinarily
Andrews would be saying that the enemy was weak, Drummond a military
genius, and victory certain. But Colin knew better and Andrews knew that
he knew. Andrews would never say such a thing unless he trusted Colin
completely because remarks like that could get officers in trouble.

Colin said moodily, "I'd almost trade my chance at Heaven if Ling, Watt,
and Tracey were with us."

"I'd be happier too," Andrews agreed. "They know what they are doing.
Why haven't you given all three sergeant's stripes?"

"They wouldn't take them."

"Some men are like that."

"Yes, some are."

The march was slow, due in part to the age and infirmities of some of
the soldiers, but it was not hard. Mid-afternoon of the second day they
came to Berry Knob and Colin bivouaced his troops to await further
developments. Then he looked about the camp.

It was a good camp; these men knew how to set up a camp. Except for a
few battle-tested veterans, all of whom looked bored and went about
their tasks with a skill born of long experience, there was an air of
tense expectancy. The boys, some of whom were no more than fourteen, had
flushed cheeks, and the older men prowled restlessly, as though
expecting to find a Yankee somewhere. Jason Maxwell approached Colin.

"Hadn't I better put them to work, sir?"

"I think you'd better, Sergeant."

Jason set them to building a stone wall, which he said would serve as
breastworks when the Yankees came. The veterans grumbled; if there were
any Yankees here they would have fired before. But the rest went eagerly
to work, as though any forthcoming skirmish and the fate of the world
rested upon their building the wall as perfectly as possible. One
youngster laid a stone on the wall, stepped back to view his handiwork,
then forward to rearrange the stone.

Colin said nothing. The wall was unnecessary, it would of course be
abandoned when they moved up, but it did take the men's minds from
themselves. Just before dusk a scout came to lead them to their
positions in the front line.

They stopped on a hill. It was not exactly like Dynamite Hill and fifty
other hills from which Colin had commanded his platoon, but it was still
just an unimportant little hill. But men would shed their blood for it.
Lieutenant Jackson, who had been holding the position, reported no
action save a brief skirmish yesterday and retired with his men. Colin
and Jason Maxwell deployed the more inexperienced troops, trying to
arrange them between the few veterans in the platoon. They advised the
greenhorns to stay down, shoot straight, and look to the man on either
side.

Colin took up his own position, watched the Yankee emplacements and
hoped fervently that there would be no attack. If he lived to return to
Campbell Hill, he would never hunt again. He watched the night pale into
dawn and become day until he was aroused by Jason Maxwell, crawling
towards him.

Jason whispered, "Look down the hill."

Colin peered in the direction indicated. Perhaps a hundred yards away,
attached to a slender, crooked stick, a dirty white flag protruded from
behind a massive oak and waved frantically up and down. Colin frowned.
This could be the flag of surrender or a ruse.

He called, "What do you want?"

"L--Leave us come in," and as soon as he heard, Colin knew it was no
ruse. There was more than ordinary fear in the voice--there was stark
terror.

Colin called, "Just a minute."

He passed the word to hold fire if the men came unarmed and shouted to
the unseen flagman, "Come in with your hands up. You'll be shot if
you're carrying arms."

They came up the hill, two pale, fearful Union soldiers whose hands and
arms jerked spasmodically even as they advanced. When they were near
enough for Colin to see their eyes clearly, he knew that these men had
not merely thought they had seen demons. They _had_ seen demons.

Colin said sympathetically, "You're all right now."

"Omigosh!" one prisoner breathed.

"They come las' night!" the other gasped. "They was six of us. Afore we
knowed it, four was dead!"

There was no fighting on that hill, though on others Colin saw old men
and young boys fall around him as the tide of blue swept inexorably
onward. But some unknown terror had entered this particular sector.
Periodically, terrified prisoners, always with a tale of comrades who
had died before anyone even suspected there was an enemy about,
surrendered. Colin did not understand it until he heard Andrews question
a soldier captured in the fighting. This Yankee breathed defiance
through his nostrils. He carried a captured Confederate rifle which he
had used as a club when his ammunition had been exhausted and he had
been surrounded. He seemed unafraid.

"What is your home state?" Andrews asked.

"Find out, Secesh!" the prisoner jeered.

"To what company are you attached?"

"Go climb a tree!"

"You'll fare better if you cooperate," Colin told him.

"I ain't goin' to, so go ahead and toss me into your stinkin' prison. I
won't be there long. You Rebs are 'bout done. Even them two hellions you
got behind our lines can't last much longer!" His tone changed to
grudging admiration. "I kind of like them two, anyway they got sand! But
they'll be shot when we ketch 'em again jest like we shot their pal,
that third feller who was with 'em."

Colin was suddenly alert. "What was he like, this third man?" he asked
tensely. "Did you hear his name?"

"You'll get nothin' from me," the prisoner taunted.

Colin leaped toward the Yankee, his hands clenched, his eyes blazing.
"That was one of my men," he said furiously. "Tell me what you know or
I'll choke the daylights out of you. If he's dead, what harm can it do
to tell?" He stood over the prisoner, glowering.

The Yank knew a madman when he saw one. "Yeah, no harm done, I reckon.
He's dead all right. Saw him lined up and kilt with m'own eyes. He was a
tall, lean feller, dark hair and eyes. 'Bout thirty-two or thirty-three,
I'd say."

It was Ling, Colin knew now beyond a doubt. Tracey Hamlin was ten years
younger and had blue eyes; Watt Sackett was short and square.
Restraining his impulse to run somewhere, anywhere where he could be
alone to weep for his lost friend, Colin said in a low, quiet voice, "He
was a particular friend of mine from home. I know his wife and two boys.
He had no business raiding behind your lines. He knew he would be shot
if he got caught and I warned him not to go. So I don't hold against
you any part you had in his death. You were doing your job and doing it
properly. But if you'll tell me how he was captured I would like to be
able to tell his family. It would mean a lot to them."

The prisoner looked into Colin's face and saw not an enemy officer but
an unhappy fellow creature. "These three fellers came round our camp one
night and 'fore we knowed what was happenin' they made off with some
hosses. We found out quick enough and took some other hosses and chased
'em. The tall feller--the one that's dead now--he'd broke his ankle and
they'd stopped to help him. That slowed 'em down and we caught 'em and
brought 'em back to the prisoner's compound. The other two escaped a
couple of days later but the third feller couldn't make it 'counta his
ankle. He was shot the next day."

"Is that all?" Colin asked bitterly.

"No," the prisoner said. "His pals came back for him day after he was
shot, kilt our guards and let out the whole mess of prisoners. An' they

been raisin' Cain ever since they learnt their frien' was dead. Still
is, unless they got caught again."

"Thanks, soldier, thanks for telling me," Colin managed to say. He
turned and left the tent.

Somehow he found his own tent and the pallet that served as his bed. He
flung himself down on it and lay there without moving or uttering a
sound. He did not know later how long he lay there. His mind was
numb--it could repeat endlessly the words "He's dead, he's dead, he's
dead" but it could not accept the words as true. Jason Maxwell poked his
head in at the opening of the tent and quickly retreated. Colin did not
hear.

Finally he struggled into a sitting position. His mind was a little
clearer now and he knew what he must do. He must get a letter to Ann
through Sam Potts who was at the hospital station five miles behind the
front waiting for some kind of transport back to Wetherly. His left foot
had been amputated. Len Andrews had told him earlier that transport had
been arranged for tomorrow.

He rifled through his knapsack and found two pieces of smudged and
crumpled paper and a stubby pencil.

"Dear Ann," he began. "Ling has been killed--" He buried his head in his
hands. What else should he say? "His death was quick and merciful." This
was true. "He died fighting." This was true only if you stretched the
truth, but the whole truth might be too strong for Ann as yet. "He will
be missed and loved by those who knew him." This was certainly true. "I
think you know how much my thoughts are with you. The war cannot last
much longer. God willing, I will be home soon. Colin."




  CHAPTER XIII

  Suicide Stand


Beneath a clouded night sky, Colin sat on a boulder crusted with lichen
and waited for the dawn, which could bring nothing except a tidal wave
of Yankees to drown him and every one of his men. But he had waited a
dozen other times for what reason told him was certain death, and he was
still alive. He had no doubt, however, about one thing; this was the end
of the war.

There had been no formal cessation of hostilities and Lee still fought
savagely for the best terms he could get. This was the end that had been
foreordained when this senseless struggle began. Atlanta, Savannah,
Charleston and Wilmington had fallen before Sherman's advance, and,
despite Lee's brilliance, Richmond could not last long. The fall of
Richmond would bring the fall of the Confederacy.

General Drummond, in command of Colonel Andrews' regiment, was not a
doddering old fool. Nor was he a military genius. He was as able as most
generals. He had been given an unusual assignment. Certain papers,
possibly revealing the Confederacy's major weaknesses and potentially
damaging to Lee's bargaining power with the North, had been smuggled
out of Richmond to Drummond. Drummond's orders were to leave enough men
to delay the enemy twenty-four hours while he and the rest of his army
fled west with the papers.

Colonel Andrews himself had explained the situation to Colin. He had
held nothing back. He did not know the nature of the documents Drummond
carried, but whatever they were, they must not fall into enemy hands.
Andrews and Colin had picked the seasoned men from Andrews' regiment who
would remain to delay the enemy. They had automatically eliminated
everyone under nineteen and everyone over forty-five. From the remainder
they had selected thirty-seven veterans, the very cream of Andrews'
regiment. With Jason Maxwell as First Sergeant and Colin in command,
there were thirty-nine, but this particular emplacement had unexpectedly
gained another recruit.

After seeing the retiring troops on their way west, Andrews had turned
his command over to Major Dorsey and returned to help stop the Yankees.
His back against a tree, he sat calmly beside Colin and, like the
younger man, awaited whatever the morning might bring.

Suddenly he chuckled. "Did you ever feel like an utter ass, Colin?"

"Frequently."

"Well, I did when I started out with Drummond. Two-thirds of an army
running away so something or other would not fall into Yankee hands.
Why? If Drummond carried gold or silver, it's better thrown away. Since
he carries documents, burning them would release a lot of men for
fighting. That's why I came back."

Colin, who knew very well that Andrews had returned because he thought
he belonged wherever the fight might occur, said nothing. Nor did he
bother to state his own views that, while two-thirds of an army had no
right to run away with gold and silver, papers were another matter. The
South would lose this war, but she had fought one of the mightiest and
most incredible conflicts in history. Evidence of this would be
priceless to the generations who followed. Whoever had ordered the
documents saved at all costs was taking the long view, but Colin did not
try to explain that to his companion.

"Our chance would have come," Andrews continued. "Sooner or later we
would have lured the Yankees into a perfect trap and scored a major
victory."

Colin murmured, "It's possible," and refrained from reminding Andrews
that a chance to trap and annihilate the enemy had not presented itself
in months of steady retreat.

Andrews said, "I believe this may very well be the turning point, Colin.
We have a formidable group of picked men. Even though we may be
numerically inferior, there is every chance that we'll win the battle
and capture the supplies which will enable us to launch an offensive.
Who flanks our position?"

"Lieutenants Henry and Jackson."

"Good men," Andrews commented. "Good men both, but we should have an
over-all command."

"We all have the same orders."

"To hold for twenty-four hours?" Andrews asked scornfully. "Pah! Trust
old Wishy-Washy Drummond to think that one up! Do you realize that, if
an opportunity presents, we shall be unable to launch an effective
counterattack?"

"That's right."

Andrews said sadly, "More official mismanagement. With the exception of
Lee, our high officers are bungling asses."

"What about Stuart, Jackson, Hood, and the rest?"

"Grandstand players!" Andrews said contemptuously. "Very picturesque and
good headlines for the press, but they accomplish nothing. How many
lives have been sacrificed because those who should have exercised
wisdom chose to play the fool?"

"All of them."

"Eh?"

"All of them."

There was a short silence while Andrews pondered. Then, "You're right.
Of course you're right. When do you think the war should have ended?"

"It should never have started."

There was another silence that Andrews broke, "You're right again. Have
you always held such views?"

"Always."

"Yet, you're in uniform?"

Colin countered with, "Did you want to fight a war?"

"No," Andrews said without hesitation. "I much preferred my importing
business. Colin, you're a pernicious influence."

"Why?"

"You make me think. Why are we here?"

"Soldiers should never think," Colin advised. "They should merely
accept, and we are here."

"So we are," Andrews laughed. "I should like very much to continue our
friendship after the war."

"So should I."

They stopped talking, and, save for a rustling in the leaves as some
tiny animal dug out a concealed tidbit, silence reigned. Colin slid from
the boulder, pillowed his head on it and looked up at the cloudy sky. He
thought of Ann and immediately wished he had not, for he could not think
of Ann without thinking of Ling. And he could not think of Ling without
going over and over in his mind what he might have done to stop the
raiding and save Ling's life. Always, he came to the conclusion that,
short of putting him in irons, there was nothing he could have done. His
sense of responsibility for Ling's death grew out of his love for Ann,
out of the guilty knowledge that it freed her for him if she would have
him now.

He tried to force all thoughts of past and future from his mind. The
past was unreal and the future uncertain. Only the present, this very
minute, had any significance.

Andrews fell into a sound sleep and his gentle snoring broke the
silence. Shielding the match with his hand, a man down the line lighted
his pipe and the aroma of burning tobacco perfumed the air.

Somebody said plaintively, "Gimme a puff, Jess."

"We-ell, jest one."

"Tha's all I ask."

Colin, who had slumbered peacefully on a half-thousand rude couches,
found sleep eluding him. He stared at the sky. Soon, by the time the sun
rose, only twelve hours of their vigil would remain. When the sun set,
all who remained alive would be free to leave. Colin shook his head in
irritation. The Yankees had not come all night and there was no
certainty that they would come with the morning. Everyone might survive
the day.

Towards morning, the clouds scurried away. The wan, sad dawn broke. A
heavy mist that had lingered all night over the creek wandered into the
woods. It hung there like a great thick blanket of white fleece. The sun
burned through it and the mist drifted away. Colin glanced at Andrews,
still sleeping, and then at his men.

Some of the men still slept, some merely waited, and some gnawed at the
cold hardtack and pickled beef that had been issued. Every man was now a
veteran, and all knew that their orders were to hold this position at
any cost for twenty-four hours. Yet, perhaps because attack was not
certain and perhaps because no one believed he would die, the men seemed
bored rather than tense or excited.

Andrews stirred, wakened, and yawned prodigiously just as Jason Maxwell
hobbled down to Colin.

"Any orders, sir?"

"The orders stand as issued, Sergeant."

"Very well, Captain."

Jason left and Andrews gazed curiously after him. "There's a queer
duck."

"Why?"

"I've never seen his feathers ruffled."

"They're never ruffled."

"You'd almost think he likes this."

"He does."

"What is there to like about it?" Andrews looked inquiringly at Colin.
"Is he bloodthirsty?"

Colin said emphatically, "Definitely not! Jason's one of the kindest,
gentlest and most considerate people I've ever known! But he's a special
case. As some are born to be musicians, artists or engineers, Jason was
born to be a soldier. It is soldiery and not war, that he likes."

Andrews said dubiously, "A soldier who doesn't care to kill anyone?"

"Have you known many soldiers who do like to kill?"

"Come to think of it, no," Andrews conceded. "All this is too profound
for my feeble mind."

Gustily and with obvious enjoyment he began to eat his own pickled beef
and hardtack. Colin sat quietly; he appreciated the company of this man
who was compounded of such earthy ingredients. Then the warm sun,
slanting through the trees, made him drowsy and he slept.

He awakened suddenly, but no sound had disturbed him and he saw nothing
new. Some inner sense whetted by years of constant danger had alerted
him. He sat up and saw that Andrews was now keenly watchful. All along
the line, men had ceased whatever they were doing to face the direction
from which the enemy they could neither see nor hear, but only sense,
was approaching.

Ten rifles spoke from an adjoining position and were answered by the
oncoming Yankees. Colin clearly heard ten more rifles, then ten more,
and nodded approvingly. He had instructed his men to fire in groups of
ten so that, by the time the last rifles were empty, the first would be
reloaded and ready to shoot again. Then he saw the Union troops.

Men with bayoneted rifles were walking the ridge across the creek. They
made no attempt to conceal themselves because they knew they were out of
range. They wanted to draw fire in order to exhaust the enemy's supply
of ammunition.

They descended to the creek bottom, and when they reappeared they were
more cautious. Colin realized that the Union troops outnumbered his men
and also that the third of an army in his command must sound like the
entire army. It was advantageous that the Yankees did not know that
Drummond had gone with two-thirds of the army. Again the first ten
rifles spoke, then the second, and Colin aimed and fired with the third.
He was not unduly alarmed because, doubtless, this first attack was a
probe to assess the Rebels' strength and determine their positions. The
Yankees returned fire and retreated.

There would be a brief lull before the next attack, and Colin took full
advantage of the quiet and relaxed. Andrews also rested. Both men looked
steadily in the enemy's direction, and Colin was startled to hear
someone close beside him say, "Captain Campbell!"

It was Sergeant Deshmire from Captain Taylor's company. Ordinarily
nothing ruffled his placid exterior. Once a shell that had failed to
explode landed at Deshmire's feet, but he had merely finished his lunch.
At present he was agitated.

"Captain Campbell, Sergeant Maxwell's bad hit!"

Colin said almost stupidly, "What?"

"Sergeant Maxwell--"

Colin was on his feet and running beside Deshmire, but even as he ran
his mind rejected the absurdity of this news. Jason Maxwell had come
through four years of war without a minor wound. He was indestructible.
Then Colin was kneeling beside him.

His head pillowed on Deshmire's jacket, Jason lay behind the tree where
Deshmire had placed him out of the path of the bullets. Sweat covered
his forehead and dampened his hair. Frothy blood, indicating a lung
shot, bubbled from his mouth. He was too deep in shock to feel much
pain. Colin took Jason's limp, cold hand in his and knew that nothing
could be done. He hoped his smile was reassuring.

"So you finally stopped one, Sergeant?"

"I stopped one, Captain," Jason smiled wanly.

Wonder rose and mounted in Colin's mind. Throughout the years he had
seen many men die. Some had been silent, some moaned or screamed with
pain, some hysterically blurted out a confession of their sins and all
feared dying. But when the final moment came, Colin could not remember
even one who feared death itself. He had long ago determined that on the
threshold between life and whatever succeeds life, some shining,
splendid vision was revealed to those about to die. In the final moment
they had no fear.

Jason was going to die and he surely knew it, but he seemed filled with
a serenity that verged on ecstacy. Colin knew that any possible pain
could not steal or dim that mood. Pain was physical.

"They're comin'!" Deshmire hissed.

Deshmire stood behind a tree about five yards to one side, and Colin
looked down the slope to see the Yankees advancing again. The attack was
more purposeful this time. The Yankees knew the Rebel positions and they
were coming to destroy them. Colin noted that the Union forces did not
seem weakened. He waited for the first rifles, the second, and shot with
the third.

At once he reloaded, a mechanical action drilled into him by combat.
After a soldier fires his weapon, he should reload instantly and be
ready to fire again. He realized that his men were in trouble. He was
neither afraid nor panicked, for if fear and panic ruled he would cease
to be a soldier and would become a fugitive.

In turn he fired again. When the Yankees went back down the hill, the
pattern of their attack was evident. This was a battle of attrition.
After they wore down the Rebels, they would overwhelm those remaining
with a bayonet charge.

Colin turned to Jason Maxwell. The first numbing shock had passed, and
he was in pain. His face muscles were tense, and the little bubble of
blood at his mouth became larger. Jason ground his teeth in agony, and
Colin's wonder mounted. Even this pain could not overcome the serene
aura, the ecstatic glow, that enveloped Jason.

Colin wiped his friend's face with a handkerchief and said, "We'll get
you out, Sergeant."

It was an inane thing to say and he knew it, for they were not going to
get Jason out. Colin needed inspired words, but he could not provide
them.

Andrews appeared. "Dorsey, Kintner, Mason and Williams are dead. Zenos
has a broken left arm and Disbrow is carrying a bullet in his shoulder.
Kellem and Hewitt have light wounds."

Colin said, "They hit us pretty hard."

It was a stock comment applied to a routine situation. Had Andrews
behaved in his customary fashion, he would have said that casualties
were not disastrous and a smashing victory was certain. He said nothing,
and Colin glanced up to find him staring at Jason Maxwell.

Understanding, admiration and sorrow were in Andrews' eyes. No
sentimentality existed in his expression or in his voice when he spoke.
"He's a happy man, Colin."

Colin said dully, "Happy?"

"He knows all he ever wanted to know."

With a sudden rush of warm gratitude for this observation, Colin now
understood what Andrews had seen at first glance. Destiny had decreed
that Jason Maxwell be born a clubfoot; at the same time fate had endowed
him with dreams of a soldier's life. Granted his dream, he had been
granted its fulfillment. He had lived a soldier's life and now he was
dying a soldier's death. Colin bent his head. Andrews said gently,
"You're fortunate, too; for while you lingered on this earth one man was
truly your brother."

Suddenly the pain faded from Jason's face and only the ecstacy remained.
In a sudden resurgence of strength he stretched forth his hand. Then he
spoke in a faint whisper, "Captain."

"Yes, Sergeant?"

Colin took the outstretched hand and leaned forward to hear the next
whisper. Jason's hand tightened and his smile became joyful.

"Bless you, Captain."

Jason died like a man settling into a peaceful and welcome sleep. Very
gently Colin covered his friend's face with his own jacket.

Andrews said, "They'll come again, Colin, but I'm sure we can hold them.
If we seize the propitious moment to launch a bayonet charge--"

A rifle cracked on the opposite slope. Andrews stopped talking abruptly.
He wrinkled his brow as though in deep thought, took a halting forward
step, and then like a weed in the path of a hot flame, he wilted to the
ground. He sighed once and lay still. Colin dropped to his knees,
slipped his bare hand inside Andrews' shirt to feel for a heartbeat, and
brought it away wet with blood. Some sniper, a superb shot and blessed
with a lot of luck, had seen Andrews, taken a chance, and hit his target
squarely in the heart.

Deshmire hissed, "Here they come!"

    *    *    *    *    *

There were still two hours until sunset. A woodpecker, searching for
grubs on a nearby tree, beat a rattling cadence with its bill. A robin
chirped. Colin crouched behind a tree and awaited another attack.

The Yankees had indeed come again, and again, until he was no longer
sure how many times they had left one hill to attack another. Each time
they had been hurled back and each time they had suffered, but each time
they had also inflicted more damage. Of the forty men who had faced them
from this emplacement at dawn, eleven were dead. Thirteen walking
wounded, carrying two unable to walk, had departed to the rear. Sergeant
Deshmire, a bullet through his head and another in his belly, had died
behind a tree.

From the diminishing rifle fire on either side, Colin knew that other
emplacements had suffered heavily. Colin tried not to think of the
remaining fourteen men. They had killed as many men as they had lost,
but the Yankees had originally outnumbered the Rebels and they still
did.

Colin shifted his position to obtain a slightly better field of vision.
He looked at the bayonet on his rifle. It was fixed and ready.

Two minutes before he saw any Yankees, he knew the attack was coming.
When he saw them, he did not bring his rifle into firing position
because the range was too great. His shot must kill or disable a Yankee
in order to eliminate as many as possible from bayonet combat.

Again they descended the hill, were lost for a moment in the creek
bottom, and came into view. Colin sighted. He shot coolly, and without
looking to see whether he had hit his target, reloaded and shot again.

The men in blue were very near, and the setting sun glanced from their
bayonets. Colin tried to guess how many there were and could make no
exact tally, but the defenders were outnumbered at least five to one. He
kept his intent gaze on a big tree because it shielded a Yankee, and he
made ready to spring up and engage that man with his bayonet. There was
almost no shooting. The Rebels had emptied their arms and had no time to
reload. This was the last charge.

Suddenly rifles sputtered from the enemy's rear and Yankees fell. The
great menacing serpent of enemy soldiers halted. Somebody yelled,
"They're behind us!"

"Run!" another screamed. "They got behin't us!"

Panic spread from one end of the line to the other. The Yankees, who had
been so close to victory, turned in hasty flight.

Over the ridge so recently in enemy hands sprang a row of men with
unkempt hair and beards and tattered uniforms. But those uniforms were
grey. As the men drew nearer, Colin recognized Tracey Hamlin, then Watt
Sackett. And when they gained the crest of the ridge, Colin saw among
them his brother, Macklyn.




  CHAPTER XIV

  Return to Quail Wings


"Hi, Jedge!" Tracey was not the nineteen-year-old who had so
enthusiastically volunteered to fight. Now he was an older man who had
passed through fire and had been hardened as steel is tempered. "We been
followin' ya' quite a spell. We knowed ya' was with Drummond an' we
aimed to ketch up."

"Where did you find the friends you brought with you?"

"Back thar," Tracey waved his hand in the general direction of the Union
lines.

"They were prisoners?"

"They was in a kind of footy little wire pen."

"You got them out?" Colin knew he should be upbraiding these two for
insubordination but it was too late for that now. He didn't have the
heart.

"Stampeded the hosses through the guards an'--" Watt shrugged.

"You didn't come any too soon," Colin grinned at them.

"We heerd the fightin' an' we been watchin' the Yanks half a day.
Couldn't do much about it 'cause we didn' have much to do with. But we
knowed they was wearin' ya' down on account of the shootin'. We figgered
that sooner or later they'd toss most ever'body in to wipe you out. When
they did--" Watt shrugged again.

Colin understood. Confident of victory, certainly the Yanks who remained
to mop up had not been expecting an attack from the rear. Once they
launched their final attack and threw in all their reserves, the Rebs
had little trouble overwhelming the Union guard and capturing arms for
themselves. Attacked from the rear by a foe in front of them, the Yanks
had panicked.

"We'd of been back sooner," Tracey explained, "'cept they kilt Ling. We
done our best to fetch him along, but he couldn't make it. It provoked
us."

Remembering the terrified prisoners, Colin said dryly, "Yes, it must
have. I heard about what happened from a captured Yank--about Ling, I
mean, and how he was already dead when you went back for him." He looked
at the ground and bitterness filled his heart. "Do you know where he was
buried?" he asked.

"We buried him," Tracey said shortly. "Whar we goin' from here?"

"I don't know."

For the first time, it occurred to Colin that he didn't know. Their only
orders had been to hold on long enough to give Drummond a
twenty-four-hour start, and they had obeyed those orders. They had no
more orders, perhaps because they had not been expected to survive the
delaying action, but more probably because Drummond, too, knew this was
the end. There was little point in rallying troops to fight when the
fighting was over. Colin made a sudden decision. "I'm going home," he
said.

"Us, too?" Tracey asked.

"You, too."

The eyes of both men revealed their excitement. "Sounds good, Jedge.
Watt, shouldn't we ought to give a hand 'round here 'fore we go?"

"Guess so, guess so."

Colin saw Macklyn ahead and left the men to walk slowly forward to join
him. Macklyn was as lean as a greyhound. His hair and beard were grey,
and even his bushy brows were flecked with grey. His tattered uniform
was patched with bits of blanket and tent cloth, and his trousers showed
a wide streak of Yankee blue that must have been given to him in a
prisoner's camp. But on this bloody hill, with only the remnants of a
once-mighty army around him, he remained the general.

"Macklyn!"

Macklyn turned and stared with a trace of the old haughtiness,
unrecognizing.

"It's been a long war Macklyn. It's brought me all the way from Hobbs
Creek to--I don't even know the name of this hill."

"Colin!"

Heedless of the soldiers who stopped to gape, Macklyn stepped forward to
embrace his brother. Then he backed two steps and there was only delight
in his eyes.

"Colin! They told me you'd been killed!"

"I'm one of the lucky ones."

"I too. Tell me, what have you been doing?"

"When you came on the scene, I was doing my best to command the
detachment defending this hill."

One of the men who had arrived with Macklyn approached and Macklyn
introduced him. "Colonel Bascomb, my brother Colin."

Bascomb, in tatters like all the rest, shook hands, exchanged small
talk, and went on to superintend some men who were digging graves. Colin
followed with his eyes.

"You're all officers?"

"Yes. We were confined in an officers' compound, and nobody could have
stampeded it more effectively or led us out more surely than the two men
who rescued us. They knew what they were doing."

"Two of my Hobbs Creek recruits," Colin said proudly. "I told you long
ago that they would be among our best fighters, but would never be good
soldiers."

"I made my mistakes, Colin."

"And so did I. Befriending the Dares, for example."

"That had nothing to do with Tom's conduct," Macklyn said.

"I wonder what happened to him?"

"A captured Yankee officer told me he was getting richer every day
supplying the Union army."

"Did he know of Tom's daughter?"

Macklyn said hesitantly, "She--she was the officer's wife."

Colin said without feeling, "The fortunes of war, and I wish him the
joy of her. What follows this?"

"You have no orders?"

"Only to hold this position twenty-four hours. We did that."

"What do you think?"

"That we may as well go home."

Macklyn said quietly, "I agree."

"I expect you're ranking officer here," Colin pointed out. "Such a
decision on your part may lead to unpleasantness."

Macklyn shrugged. "Why pretend? The war's over and we have lost. Lee may
hold for days or, at the most, weeks. All of us can send him word.
Should he care to have us report for active duty, which I question, he
can notify us. At any rate, I assume complete responsibility."

"All right, Macklyn," Colin said quietly.

The graves had been dug, and the mounds of fresh earth on either side
looked oddly clean and fresh. Macklyn read from a Bible belonging to
another officer, and all stood with bared heads as their dead were
lowered to rest. Helping their wounded and carrying those who were
incapacitated, the men who had been left to make a suicide stand and
their rescuers walked away from the war.

    *    *    *    *    *

Their wounded were left in a hospital at Darleytown, and as the men came
upon the roads leading to their homes, they took leave. Only Colin,
Macklyn, Watt, and Tracey remained to strike out on the long path
leading up the Connicon. The route they chose took them across part of
the battlefront, or what had been a battlefront. The fury that had raged
there was dead. Union and Confederate soldiers were still at their
stations, but they knew that the war had run its course and they did not
risk death because in a very short time Lee had to surrender. Now and
again a cannon roared and occasionally a rifle snapped. But they
represented little except fist shaking, to serve as a reminder that the
fight could be resumed if anyone was foolish enough to provoke it.

Colin thought of his wealth, as measured in money and goods. Packed
carefully in his knapsack were a neatly tied bundle of letters from Ann
that he had purloined from Ling's belongings when he knew Ling was dead;
a broken doll that some child had pressed into his hand when the
Confederate Army had taken a town; a dried flower that had once given a
touch of beauty to an otherwise drab camp; and a bit of verse written by
some soldier on a sheet of foolscap that Colin had found blowing across
a battle field. The first two lines ran repeatedly through his mind.

  We who are about to die salute no Caesar
  As we go forth to battle, we salute everlasting life.

Macklyn said, "I'm sorry that I have never seen your home in the
mountains. Betsie tells me it's beautiful. What's it like?"

Colin described Campbell Hill and added, "There are no slave quarters."

Macklyn smiled thinly. "A foresighted omission; you won't need them."

"Why don't you--" Colin began and then hesitated. War had raged along
the Connicon and Quail Wings must have felt its fury. He had been on the
point of asking Macklyn why he and Betsie did not come to live at
Campbell Hill, but instantly he knew better. Betsie had refused to leave
Quail Wings during the war. It was Macklyn's home, the only home he
would want.

"Why don't I what?" Macklyn asked.

"Come with Betsie and the girls and see for yourself," Colin amended.

"I'll be delighted, Colin, and, of course, Betsie will, too. The
girls--Linda married Wilfred Gentle and went with him when he was sent
to the western theatre. I only hope Betsie knows where they are. Lorena
married Wilson Thorne and has a fine baby boy--"

"How wonderful!" Colin interrupted.

"Wilson was killed at Gettysburg, just three days before the baby was
born," Macklyn continued quietly.

"So many of the best are dead," Colin said sadly.

"The baby isn't!" Macklyn answered with spirit. "The Thornes--Hilliard
was invalided home in '62--are taking care of him while Francesca stays
on duty at Cahecechaca Military Hospital--" He interrupted himself to
call sharply, "Watch it!" At the same instant Watt Sackett and Tracey
Hamlin leaped in front of them. A lean soldier carrying a rifle and
wearing the usual tattered uniform had been walking ahead of them. He
suddenly whirled and leveled his rifle.

"Stay whar ye be!" he commanded.

Macklyn said, "You needn't fear us."

"I ain't goin' back! We'uns got licked!"

"We've no intention of taking you back. We're going home too."

"Ye be?"

The lean soldier lowered his rifle but remained alert. When the group
came near, he slung his rifle in the crook of his arm and said
companionably,

"Reckon ye mean what ye say. Who be ye?"

"Macklyn Campbell."

The soldier extended his hand. "Use'ta be a gener'l o' that name. I be
Decker Bindley."

Macklyn introduced his companions and they trudged in silence for twenty
minutes. Then Decker Bindley said, as though it were a matter he had
been considering for a long while, "We fit 'em. We fit 'em fer a spell
o' time. An' we got licked."

"That's right."

"Is they still fightin'?"

"I think so."

"Oughtn't be," Decker Bindley commented. "No sense in no more killin'.
Soon's I knowed that I says to me, 'Deck, you fit Yanks for a long
spell. Git home to yer woman an' kids while ye kin!'"

"Sensible," Macklyn said.

Decker Bindley said, "I ain't runnin' away. If they was a chanst I'd
stay, but they ain't no more chanst."

"We know it."

They walked without speaking for another mile, and when they came to a
place where the road forked, Decker Bindley took one branch while those
going up the Connicon continued together. Three days later they were in
Denbury.

At first glance the town seemed unchanged--the same buildings, the same
trees, and even the same weary dogs in the same shady spots. But it was
changed, Colin noted dismally. He saw Grubb Rowely, whom he had once
jailed for beating his wife, hobbling about on a peg leg. There was a
sign over a building "W. Matson, Blacksmith." But the blacksmith who
stood in the doorway, the same Willie Matson who had once faced Colin in
court, was hunched far over to the right because the bullet that had
ripped him would not let him stand straight. There were other men
without arms or legs, but Colin was most disheartened over the
courthouse. He tried to remember when it had been such a grand edifice.
Now it looked grubby and small, and there was about it an air of
distinct decay. He was glad when they had passed through Denbury and
started up the road beside the Connicon.

Unruffled by men and their wars, the river pursued its unhurried course
towards the sea. Except for a few willows that had been broken by
shells, the trees, bearing new leaves, were as they had always been. As
they neared Thornhill, and the view of the mountains, Colin quickened
his step. It was here that he had always made Dusty walk when going home
from Denbury court so that he might lift his eyes to the mountains. But
when they reached it, he had eyes only for the plantation.

The forest that grew on all sides had sent adventurous saplings and
creepers a quarter of the way across Thornhill's fields. What had been
neatly cultivated fields of tobacco and corn had become a tangle of
brush and briers. The big house was dingy, with paint flaking from wood.
The slave quarters had been either razed or burned, and the stables were
tumbledown. Much of the glass was missing from the windows of the house,
and many windows were closed with raw lumber. Three work mules shuffled
in the paddock where Hilliard Thorne's brood mares had raced their
long-legged colts. But blue smoke curled from one of the great chimneys.

Colin said nothing, and sensing his mood, neither Watt nor Tracey spoke.
Macklyn was intent and eager, and in spite of himself, Colin felt a
rising excitement too. Ahead lay Quail Wings, beloved home of his
boyhood and young manhood. War could not completely shatter Colin's
memory of his home.

They reached the clearing, started up the drive, and met a man and a boy
driving a team of mules. With a start, Colin recognized the same blocky,
beefy Ned Hale who had once appeared before him in Denbury court. Now
Hale affected an easy familiarity which he wouldn't have dared assume
before the war. "Howdy, Macklyn. You home to stay?"

"Yes. How are things going?"

"We'll make a crop," Ned said expansively. "We'll make a crop an'
there'll be somethin' in it for both of us." He nodded at Colin. "Howdy,
Y'r Honor."

"Hello, Ned."

Watt Sackett said hotly, "Your mules got harness sores! Oughtn't be
drivin' 'em, you oughtn't!"

"Now, little man, th' mules are mine."

"Don't call me little man!" Watt bristled.

They went on towards the house which, like Thornhill, was sadly in need
of paint and had rough lumber nailed over open windows. Colin asked his
brother, "What's Ned Hale doing here?"

"He and his son have been working the place on shares while I was away."

Macklyn spoke as though this were the most natural and the only natural
explanation. The war had indeed wrought changes; there had been a time
when Macklyn wouldn't even have spoken to Ned Hale. Then they were at
the door and Colin held Watt and Tracey back so Macklyn could enter
alone. There was a tense silence and then "Macklyn!"

It was a cry wrenched from the heart, and they heard a woman's sobbing
and then the quiet voices of Macklyn and Betsie. Presently Macklyn
returned to the door and said happily, "Welcome to Quail Wings!"




  CHAPTER XV

  Homecoming


Colin, Watt and Tracey were admitted to the drawingroom. It now held a
seven-foot wooden partition that lacked more than a dozen feet of
reaching the ceiling. Within the enclosure were a small cooking range, a
wooden table and a few chairs that formerly had been used by the slaves,
and a wooden cabinet for dishes. Nailed to the wall was a board with
hooks spaced at intervals and from the hooks hung skillets and kettles.
Through the doorless aperture at one side was revealed the lower half of
a neatly-made bed. By glancing over the partition, Colin saw that the
exquisite chandeliers and candelabra were missing. Probably they had
been carried off by the Yankees.

Although there had been a drastic change in Quail Wings, the only
difference in Betsie was that wrought by passing years. There were more
lines in her face than Colin remembered, and the hands that had always
been so carefully kept were hard and calloused. She wore a simple dark
dress that covered her from neck to ankles, and her greying hair was
bound at the nape of her neck. But the smile on her lips and the
happiness in her eyes more than atoned for coarse clothing and lines
etched by work and worry.

"Colin!" she rushed forward and kissed him.

Colin hugged her warmly. "Oh, Betsie, you can't imagine how wonderful it
is to see you!"

"I am starved for the sight of you, too, you know," she said, laughing.

It was as though he had gone back to the source of things and found all
that ever had been, or ever would be, worthwhile.

Colin recalled her to Watt and Tracey, whom she had met at the
housewarming at Campbell Hill four years ago. "Messrs. Sackett and
Hamlin, do you remember my brother's wife, Mrs. Macklyn Campbell?"

Watt and Tracey murmured subdued acknowledgement. Then Betsie thawed
them and won their hearts by going forward and taking each by the hand.
"You're most welcome here, Mr. Sackett and Mr. Hamlin."

"Thankee, ma'am," Tracey murmured. "Name's Tracey."

"And call me Watt," Watt Sackett said.

Colin was charmed, but he could not rid himself of a feeling that the
scene before him was not taking place at all. Betsie was offering a
masquerade, and all the guests were to come as soldiers who had just
finished fighting a desperate war. The drawingroom was altered to
conform to the _motif_ of the party and was not really a place where
Betsie worked in a makeshift kitchen and slept in a bed just outside it.
She turned to Colin and laughed.

"We'll accommodate you most elegantly. In the drawingroom and three of
the bedrooms are the only ceilings that don't leak when it rains."

Colin grinned. "At least there is a roof."

"The Yankees took so much," she explained, and there was little trace of
rancor or bitterness in her voice. "They even found the silver we buried
and took that. They would have taken the house itself if there had been
a way to do it."

Colin said, "If the Yankees haven't raided Hobbs Creek, I'll have silver
to spare for you."

"You angel!"

Macklyn said, "These valiant warriors are hungry, my dear. Does Quail
Wings still have a larder?"

"Oh mercy me! I'm a thoughtless hostess!"

Betsie lifted a stove lid, poked the grey ashes, built the fire up, and
began to mix a johnnycake. Colin watched. Betsie would hardly have known
how to boil an egg four years ago, and Watt Sackett and Tracey Hamlin
would not have been guests at Quail Wings in those days. But now that
the blindfold was gone from Colin's eyes, he saw very clearly.

These people, the planters, had built their wealth on a foundation of
hard work, applied intelligence and vision. Now, in extreme adversity,
they remained exactly as they had been. They would build again, and
though one of the Willie Matsons, Ned Hales, or even Grubb Rowelys,
might equal or even surpass some, the best of them would again be
leaders. Colin thought suddenly of old Gerald Varnum, who had bequeathed
Varnum Acres to his young son Henry. A fool, Henry had squandered his
inheritance and two years after his father's death, only a saddle and a
horse remained. He promptly mounted and rode west with the announced
intention of recouping his fortunes there. No vested interest could
expect to maintain its position without intelligence, strength, and
mercy. Even kings fell when they became too weak or too tyrannical.

Watt and Tracey tilted their chairs against the wall and sniffed
hungrily as Betsie began to brown pork chops in a skillet. Colin stirred
uneasily; Quail Wings still had a larder but it couldn't possibly be an
extensive one. Macklyn, who had been on a tour of the house, ducked back
through the aperture and said calmly, "They were rather thorough."

"Did they take everything?" Colin asked.

"Everything they could carry."

Colin made no comment. When he had moved to Campbell Hill, one coveted
treasure, his mother's portrait, had remained at Quail Wings. He had
never mentioned his desire to have it because he had known his father
would never part with it. Now it was gone. Betsie said, "Dinner is
ready."

The table was set with coarse dishes and cutlery, the best at Quail
Wings. Colin still had the curious feeling that this was a masquerade.
Then he knew. The table and tableware were rude and the food common, but
wherever Macklyn and Betsie might be, there would also be warm
hospitality. If they lived in a barn, their guests would still be
graciously received.

Colin ate sparingly; he knew there couldn't possibly be a great reserve
of food, but it seemed to him that he relished this simple fare far more
than any of the banquets which he had eaten in this house. Watt and
Tracey were hungry and ate rapidly. Colin saw in Betsie's eyes the
delight that any good cook feels when her efforts are appreciated.
Tracey grabbed the last bit of johnnycake to mop up his plate. Colin
finished and said happily, "That's the finest meal I've eaten in a long
while, Betsie."

"You didn't eat much."

"Plenty, I assure you."

"You will stay the night?" Macklyn asked.

"I'd like to get up to Hobbs Creek tonight," Colin said. But now that
seeing Ann was possible, not a remote dream-like hope, he felt hesitant.
Ling, dead, came between them as he had not when he was alive. And Ann
might blame him, as he often blamed himself, for Ling's death. If he
could simply go and take her in his arms--but that moment might never
come now.

"Oh, stay," Macklyn said. "You don't know when you'll get here again, or
when we'll get away. There's so much to be done."

"What are you going to do, Macklyn?"

"First tackle the brush with a brush hook. Then perhaps I'll be able to
borrow a team of mules from Ned Hale and help with the plowing. Any
spare time I have I can very profitably spend on the house and
outbuildings."

Betsie said, "Those are our mules Ned's using, dear. When I knew the
Yankees were coming, I hid them in a swamp. There is a second team in
the paddock."

"My lovely Rebel!" Macklyn's eyes glowed with warmth. "That's one less
bridge to cross."

"Would you like me to send Zack to help?" Colin asked.

"You'll need him yourself," Macklyn pointed out.

"I can spare him at least part time and I know he'll be glad to come,"
replied Colin. "He always loved this place."

"If you can do without him sometime it would be a wonderful help, Colin.
Wait and see. It will take time, but we'll rebuild Quail Wings."

"I know you will," Colin said fervently. Four years ago, the thought of
Macklyn's doing menial labor would have been beyond the farthest reach
of the imagination. But Colin knew now that the ingenuity, perseverance
and vision that had built Quail Wings originally would rebuild it. "Zack
and Dab and I will be down next week to help you. Zack's a first-rate
carpenter when he puts his mind to it, and Dab can make anything grow
anywhere."

"And you?" Macklyn teased smilingly.

"I guess I can cut brush as well as the next lawyer," Colin answered.

    *    *    *    *    *

The young trees had grown more rapidly than he thought it possible for
them to grow. Some shrubs and early flowers were in bloom. Gardens
showed the tender sprigs of very young vegetables. Most of the horses
had been requisitioned for the army, but Robin snorted in his paddock
and a long-legged colt ran beside Sue. Zack had managed to get or keep a
team of mules and was cultivating with them.

Watt tried to sound casual and succeeded only in emphasizing the
excitement bubbling within him. "I'll ja'nt down an' see Hannah, Jedge."

"I'll be goin' along, too," Tracey said. "But first I got somethin' for
ya', Jedge."

"For me?" Colin looked puzzled.

"Yeah." For a moment Tracey did not speak, and when he did his words
were slow and measured. "You knowed we spent a day or so in that Yank
prison camp with Ling 'fore we got away. He knowed we was goin' and he
knowed he couldn' make it hisself."

"What are you driving at, Tracey?"

"He knowed he'd mos' likely be shot, but he fooled us into thinking he'd
be all right till we come back fer him." Tracey stopped and Colin waited
for him to continue. "He tol' me, 'When they's no more chanst of the
Jedge gettin' kilt,' Ling says, 'give him this, Tracey. I tried my
bounden best to tell him an' couldn't. But I know how things was, tell
him. When the Jedge gits this, he'll know what I tried to tell him.
He'll know, too, what I mean fer him to do.'"

Tracey dropped a small parcel wrapped in cloth into Colin's hand and
turned to stride swiftly away. Colin removed the wrapping and stared in
wonder. Inside was Ling Stewart's wedding ring. He raised his head and
blinked away tears that he could not keep from his eyes. Suddenly he
knew what Ling had wanted to tell him and had not been able to say. "I
know how things was," he had told Tracey. Colin felt a rising wonder.
What he had considered his closely guarded secret was no secret at all.
Ling had known Colin was in love with Ann. Colin almost heard him say,
"If I get kil't in this here war, Jedge, it wouldn't be mortal bad
a'tall if I knowed you'd take her. She needs somebody."

With this ring, Ling had given Ann into Colin's keeping, as though she
were a horse or mule to be offered away! But how very like Ling! Colin
slipped the ring into his pocket and was only vaguely aware, as he
neared the house, that Campbell Hill had not entirely escaped the effect
of war. The house and outbuildings needed paint; Zack had fashioned
wooden hinges to replace metal ones that were no longer available; the
harrow that awaited use in a fresh-plowed field had wooden teeth. But no
Yankees had visited here. Campbell Hill was blessed beyond measure
compared with the houses along the Connicon. Then Zack turned and saw
him.

"Jedge Colin!"

He left his mules and came running, a tall man who flew like a running
deer. Reaching Colin, he embraced him.

"Jedge Colin! Youah back!"

"I'm back."

"T'stay?"

"To stay. The war's over."

"Glory be! C'mon in!"

He escorted Colin into the kitchen, where Nell hugged him ecstatically
and assured him, "Jest si' down! You'll have vittles in a hustle!"

"But I'm really not hungry, Nell."

"You got to be hungry--you looks half-starved--an' vittles is one thing
we got in plenty."

"Tha's right," Zack asserted. "The crops been good, the pigs been good,
we got some beef crittuhs an' they been good. No so'jers come this way.
We been lucky."

"Zack, do you know if Sam Potts got home all right?" Colin asked.

"Yeah, he home now a couple of weeks."

"The food will have to wait. There's something I must do right away,
Nell," Colin said, rising. He knew that he must go to Ann at once. If he
delayed, he might not have the courage to go at all. "Will you saddle
Robin, please Zack?"

"So soon--" Zack began to protest.

"Saddle Robin, Zack," Nell interrupted quietly. "The Jedge, he know what
he haf' to do."

A few minutes later when he reined to a halt before the Stewart cabin,
Ann appeared in the doorway. "Colin!" she said, quietly. Her hand flew
to her throat.

"Ann!" He searched her face closely. Like Betsie, she had changed with
the years. Some of the sparkle was gone, but its absence somehow
emphasized the delicate strength of her beauty. Gentleness,
intelligence, warmth, all the qualities that made her so dear, were
deepened and mellowed.

"You know?" he asked finally. "You got my letter?"

"Yes. And I was prepared for it. I've known, I believe, for a long time
that it was going to happen. I think Ling knew, too."

"What makes you say that?" Colin asked quickly.

"Once in a while he would get someone to write me a letter for him. He
couldn't express himself well--but in little ways he was trying to tell
me, to prepare me for it."

Colin thought a moment. "That fits in with something that Tracey Hamlin
told me just a while ago when we got home. And with something Ling gave
him to give me." He took the cloth from his pocket and walked toward
Ann. When he stood beside her, he opened the wrapping. Ann stared at the
ring. "He told Tracey to tell me that he knew I loved you, Ann, and that
he had been trying to tell me for a long while but wasn't able to. When
I got this ring, he told Tracey, I'd know what he meant me to do."

Ann stood staring at the ring, wrinkling her brow in bewilderment. Then,
very slowly, she began to smile. "If that isn't just like him!" she said
affectionately. "Such a practical, no-nonsense fellow."

"Ann, there's something more I have to tell you." He went on to describe
the raids, the way he had tried to prevent them and the final raid that
had ended in Ling's death. "I keep feeling that there was something more
I should have done to keep him from going. Because I love you, perhaps,
unconsciously I wanted Ling to go. I can't judge myself. But I could
understand if you held me responsible and hated me for it."

Ann looked intently into his eyes. "Hate you!" she said. "Colin, how
needlessly you've tortured yourself! Nothing could have stopped Ling--I
know him. What can I do to get rid of this insane idea you have?"

Colin felt as if an enormous weight had been lifted from him. His arms
went around her and his lips met hers. Finally, he drew back and said,
smiling down at her, "You asked me a question. Rude of me not to answer!
If you want to keep me from insane ideas you only have to marry me and
come with the boys and your father to live at Campbell Hill." He was
suddenly dead serious as he asked, "Will you, Ann?"

Her eyes met his and a happy smile played on her lips. As she formed the
word "yes" he took her in his arms again and held her close. The South
was defeated, he thought. But Macklyn and Betsie were not defeated.
Timid Hope Tyler had conquered her fears and had gone home; she was not
defeated. Watt and Tracey were not defeated. And with Ann at his side,
life for him was just beginning.

Ravaged, neglected, impoverished--still the land was bright.


  =Transcriber's Notes:=
  - hyphenation, spelling and grammar have been preserved as in the
    original (other than as listed below)
  Page 38, asked suddenly ==> asked suddenly.
  Page 83, her like wild cat ==> her like a wild cat
  Page 110, Colin had interevened ==> Colin had intervened
  Page 137, Have you see the recruits ==> Have you seen the recruits
  Page 177, and sieze the shoulders ==> and seize the shoulders
  Page 181, a rattle snake talkin' ==> a rattlesnake talkin'




[End of The Land is Bright, by Jim Kjelgaard]
