The Guns of Bull Run: A Story of the Civil War's Eve by Joseph A. Altsheler (ebook reader for pc txt) 📗

almost at the water's edge, and made their camp on the ground. Harry's deer did not come that night, but it did on the following one. Then Jarvis and he after supper went about a mile up the stream, stalking the best drinking places, and they saw a fine buck come gingerly to the river. Harry was lucky enough to bring him down with the first shot, an achievement that filled him with pride, and Jarvis soon skinned and dressed the animal, adding him to their larder.

"I don't shoot deer, 'cept when I need 'em to eat," said Jarvis, "an' we do need this one. We'll broil strips of him over the coals in the mornin'. Don't your mouth water, Harry?"

"It does."

The strips proved the next day to be all that Jarvis had promised, and they continued their journey with renewed elasticity, fair weather keeping them company. Deeper and deeper they went into the mountains. The region had all the aspects of a complete wilderness. Now and then they saw smoke, which Jarvis said was rising from the chimneys of log cabins, and once or twice they saw cabins themselves in sheltered nooks, but nobody hailed them. The news of the war had spread here, of course, but Harry surmised that it had made the mountaineers cautious, suppressing their natural curiosity. He did not object at all to their reticence, as it made traveling easier for him.

They were now rowing along a southerly fork of the Kentucky. Another deer had been killed, falling this time to the rifle of Jarvis, and one night they shot two wild turkeys. Jarvis and his nephew would arrive home full handed in every respect, and his great tenor boomed out joyously over the stream, speeding away in echoes among the lofty peaks and ridges that had now turned from hills into real mountains. They towered far above the stream, and everywhere there were masses of the deepest and densest green. The primeval forest clothed the whole earth, and the war to which Harry was going seemed a faint and far thing.

Traveling now became slow, because they always had a strong current to fight. Harry, at times when the country was not too rough, left the boat and walked along the bank. He could go thus for miles without feeling any weariness. Naturally very strong, he did not realize how much his work at the oar was increasing his power. The thin vital air of the mountains flowed through his lungs, and when Jarvis sang, as he did so often, he felt that he could lift up his feet and march as if to the beat of a drum.

They left the fork of the Kentucky at last and rowed up one of the deep and narrow mountain creeks. Peaks towered all about them, a half mile over their heads, covered from base to crest with unbroken forest. Sometimes the creek flowed between cliffs, and again it opened out into narrow valleys. In a two days' journey up its course they passed only two cabins.

"In ordinary water we'd have stopped thar," said Jarvis at the second cabin. "I know the man who lives in it an' he's to be trusted. We'd have left the boat an' the things with him, an' we'd have walked the rest of the way, but the creek is so high now that we kin make at least twenty miles more an' tie up at Bill Rudd's place. Thar's no goin' further on the water, 'cause the creek takes a fall of fifteen feet thar, an' this boat is too heavy to be carried around it."

They reached Rudd's place about dark. He was a hospitable mountaineer, with a double-roomed log cabin, a wife and two small children. He volunteered gladly to take care of the boat and its belongings, while Jarvis and the boys went on the next day to Jarvis's home about ten miles away.

Rudd and his wife were full of questions. They were eager to hear of the great world which was represented to them by Frankfort, and of the war in the lowlands concerning which they had heard vaguely. Rudd had been to Frankfort once and felt himself a traveler and man of the world. He and his wife knew Jarvis and Ike well, and they glanced rather curiously at Harry.

"He's goin' across the mountains an' down into Virginia on some business of his own which I ain't inquired into much," said Jarvis.

Harry slept in a house that night for the first time in days, and he did not like it. He awoke once with a feeling as if walls were pressing down upon him, and he could not breathe. He arose, opened the door, and stood by it for a few minutes, while the fresh air poured in. Jarvis awoke and chuckled.

"I know what's the matter with you, Harry," he said. "After you've lived out of doors a long time you feel penned up in houses. If it wasn't for rain an' snow I'd do without roofs 'cept in winter. Leave the door wide open, an' we'll both sleep better. Nothin', of course, would wake that lunkhead, Ike, my nephew. I guess you might fight the whole of Buena Vista right over his head, an' if it was his sleepin' time he'd sleep right on."

They left the next morning, taking with them all of Harry's baggage. Jarvis' boat would remain in the creek at this point, and he and Ike would return in due time for their own possessions. They followed a footpath now, but the walk was nothing to them. It was in truth a relief after so much traveling in the boat.

"My legs are long an' they need straightenin'," said Jarvis. "The ten miles before us will jest about take out the kinks."

Jarvis was a bachelor, his house being kept by his widowed sister, Ike's mother, and old Aunt Suse. Now, as they swung along in Indian file at a swift and easy gait, his joyous spirits bubbled forth anew. Lifting up his voice he sang with such tremendous volume that every peak and ridge gave back an individual echo:

"I live for the good of my nation,
And my suns are all growing low,
But I hope that the next generation
Will resemble old Rosin, the beau.

"I've traveled this country all o'er,
And now to the next I will go,
For I know that good quarters await me
To welcome old Rosin, the beau."

"I suppose you don't know how you got that song, either," said Harry.

"No, it just wandered in an' I've picked it up in parts, here an' thar. See that clump o' laurel 'cross the valley thar, Harry? I killed a black bear in it once, the biggest seen in these parts in our times, an' I kin point you at least five spots in which I've killed deer. You kin trap lots of small game all through here in the winter, an' the furs bring good prices. Oh, the mountains ain't so bad. Look! See the smoke over that low ridge, the thin black line ag'in the sky. It comes from the house o' Samuel Jarvis, Esquire, an' it ain't no bad place, either, a double log house, with a downstairs an' upstairs, an' a frame kitchen behin'. It's fine to see it ag'in, ain't it, Ike?"

Ike smiled and nodded.

In another half hour they crossed the low ridge and swung down into a beautiful little valley, a mile long and a quarter of a mile broad that opened out before them. The smoke still rose from the house, which they now saw clearly, standing among its trees. A brook glinting with gold in the sunshine flowed down the middle of the valley. A luscious greenness covered the whole valley floor. No snugger nook could be found in the mountains.

"As fine as pie!" exclaimed Jarvis exultantly. "Everythin's straight an' right. Ike, I think I see Jane, your mother, standin' in the porch. I'll just give her a signal."

He lifted up his voice and sang "Home, Sweet Home," with tremendous volume. He was heard, as Harry saw a sunbonnet waved vigorously on the porch. The travelers descended rapidly, crossed the brook, and approached the house. A strong woman of middle years shouted joyously and came forward to meet them, leaving a little weazened figure crouched in a chair on the porch.

Mrs. Simmons embraced her brother and son with enthusiasm, and gave a hearty welcome to Harry, whom Jarvis introduced in the most glowing words. Then the three walked to the porch and the bent little figure in the chair. As they went up the steps together old Aunt Suse suddenly straightened up and stood erect. A pair of extraordinary black eyes were blazing from her ancient, wrinkled face. Her hand rose in a kind of military salute, and looking straight at Harry she exclaimed in a high-pitched but strong voice:

"Welcome, welcome, governor, to our house! It is a long time since I've seen you, but I knew that you would come again!"

"Why, what's the matter, Aunt Suse?" asked Jarvis anxiously.

"It is he! The governor! Governor Ware!" she exclaimed. "He, who was the great defender of the frontier against the Indians! But he looks like a boy again! Yet I would have known him anywhere!"

The blazing eyes and tense voice of the old woman held Harry. She pointed with a withered forefinger which she held aloft and he felt as if an electric current were passing from it to him. A chill ran down his back and the hair lifted a little on his head. Jarvis and his nephew stood staring.

"Walk in, governor," she said. "This house is honored by your coming."

Then, and all in a flash, Harry understood. The mind of the old woman dreaming in the sun had returned to the far past, and she was seeing again with the eyes of her girlhood.

"I'm not Henry Ware, Aunt Susan," he said, "but I'm proud to say that I'm his great-grandson. My name is Kenton, Harry Kenton."

The wrinkled forefinger sank, but the light in her eyes did not die.

"Henry Ware, Harry Kenton!" she murmured. "The same blood, and the spirit is the same. It does not matter. Come into our house and rest after your long journey."

Still erect, she stood on one side and pointed to the open door. Jarvis laughed, but it was a laugh of relief rather than amusement.

"She shorely took you, Harry, for your great-grandfather, Henry Ware, the mighty woodsman and Injun fighter that later on became governor of the state. I guess you look as he did when he was near your age. I've heard her tell tales about him by the mile. Aunt Suse, you know, is more'n a hundred, an' she's got the double gift o' lookin' forrard an' back'ard. Come on in, Harry, this house will belong to you now, an' ef at times she thinks you're the great governor, or the boy that Governor Ware was before he was governor, jest let her think it."

With the wrinkled forefinger still pointing a welcome toward the open door Harry went into the house. He spent two days in the hospitable home of Samuel Jarvis. He would have limited the time to a single day, because Richmond was calling to him very strongly now, but it was necessary to buy a good horse for the journey by land, and Jarvis would not let him start until he had the pick of the region.

The first evening after their arrival they sat on the porch of the mountain home. Ike's mother was with them, but old Aunt Suse had already gone to bed. Throughout the day she had called Harry sometimes by his own name and sometimes "governor," and she had shown a wonderful pride whenever he ran to help her, as he often did.

The twilight was gone some time. The bright stars had sprung out in groups, and a noble moon was shining. A fine, misty, silver light, like gauze, hung over the valley, tinting the high green heads of the near and friendly mountains, and giving a wonderful look of