Beverly!” breathed the knight eagerly, “gimme the gun! gimme the gun! I see a pair of eyes as big as saucers!”
“M – M – Marse B – B – Billy – ”
“Quick! gimme the gun! What the devil is the matter with you?”
“De wolves, Marse Billy! ‘Sposin’ arter de gun done empty dey splunge in upon us? I bound a whole nation un ‘em watchin’ us dis minute!”
Blount wrested the gun from the reluctant Beverly, whose knee now trembled against his. Pressing down the pan handle so as to throw the light well in front, he cocked the gun, adjusted it to his shoulder, took aim, and pulled the trigger.
Blount, in reply to the warning of his friends, had urged that it might very well be that a horse that shied by day at a gun would act differently at night. And he was right. By daylight the gray was in the habit of making one or two violent plunges when his rider fired. But tonight, when that terrible roar broke the stillness and that fierce blaze flashed into his eyes —
Immediately after the sound of the gun reached us we heard the anxious, jolting bray of a trotting mule. The disjointed, semi-asinine song came nearer, and presently Ned hurried past the fire to his place by his tethered mate, with a low equine chuckle of satisfaction. In his wake rushed Beverly, panting, wide eyed. It was a full minute before he could speak.
“Lord, mahsters, don’t ax me nothin’; I don’t know nothin’ ‘bout it. I ‘most don’t know whether I here or no arter de way dem revengious varmints whoop me through dem woods, a-yelpin’ an’ a-gnash-in’ o’ deir teeth. B’fo’ Gaud, I thought every minute was gwine to be my next! When Marse Billy shoot, though I beg him not to, seein’ dat de whole woods was a-bilin’ wid wolves, dat fool of a horse o’ hisn jess riz on his hind legs an’ splunge right over me an’ Ned, jess like we warn’t nothin't all. Dem lightwood knots flew right up, same as one o’ dem blaze o’ glories I see when I got religion. I lit on my head. Ned he went oneway; Marse Billy horse anudder. But seein’ as I done knowed Ned de longest, I followed him – an’ he fotch me home. Run? No, twarnt runnin’, twas flyin’; an’ every jump de varmints was a-reachin’ for me. I hear deir teeth, jess as plain, clashin’ like sheep shears. Umgh-umgh! Beverly hump heself he did. Jess look at my clothes! I left de rest of ‘em on de bushes. Whar Marse Billy? Lord a-mussy, I dunno! I mighty ‘fraid de wolves done got him, leastwise ef he didn’t set hard on dat dere fool gray.
“Mahster, couldn’t you gimme jess a leetle tetch o’ dat whiskey? I’se powerful downhearted. Thank you, mahster. But mahster, don’t lemme go no mo’ a spotin’ along o’ Marse Billy; seem like I ain’t dat kind. Lemme drive my mules, lemme cook, don’t lemme go projickin’ about wid Marse Billy Blount no mo’. You laughin’, is you, Tom? Nemmind – you go next time!”
Presently there came to us from far away a doleful yell, with nothing of the bugle blast in it. “There he is!” and we made response with laughter-choked shouts.
About fifteen minutes afterward the sound of hoofs was heard, and presently our mighty hunter appeared, but quantum mutatus ab illo! No hat, no gun, one skirt of his coat and half of the buttons gone; shirt bosom torn out, trousers hanging in ribbons! But though his face was scratched beyond recognition he remained the one, only true Blount in the world; though his eyes were bloodshot they beamed with conscious victory.
“Boys,” said he, “which of you will go and help me bring him in?”
“Bring what in?”
“Why, the buck – I blew his infernal head off, sure!”
Next morning Blount and Beverly rode to the scene of their exploit, and Blount secured his gun and Beverly his frying pan. ‘The buck had either walked off without his head or been swallowed by one of the varmints.
A CAHUTTA VALLEY SHOOTING MATCH, By Will N. Harben
THERE was a sound of merriment on Farmer Bagley’s place. It was “corn shucking” night, and the young people from all sides had met to partake of mirth and hospitality. After all had taken seats in the large sitting room and parlor, the men were invited with a mysterious wink and grin from the countenance of jovial Bagley to taste the contents of a large brown jug which smiled on a shelf beside the water bucket out in the entry. Its saturated corn-cob stopper, lying whiskey colored in the moonlight by the side of the jug, gave a most tempting aroma to the crisp, invigorating November air and rendered Bagley’s signs and hints all the more comprehensible.
They were mostly young men who, with clattering boots, filed out to the shelf and turned, with smacking lips wiped on their hands, back to the clusters of shy, tittering maidens round the blazing log fires. They wore new jean trousers neatly folded round muscular calves and stowed away, without a visible wrinkle, into high, colored-topped boots with sharp, brightly-polished heels, upon which were strapped clanking spurs. Their sack coats, worn without vests over low-necked woolen shirts, fitted their strong bodies admirably.
Dick Martin, a tall, well-built young man with marked timidity in his voice, considerably augmented by the brightness of Melissa Bagley’s eyes, drew near that young lady and said:
“Yore pap has certainly got some o’ the best corn licker in this county, Melissa; it liter’ly sets a feller on fire.”
“Be ashamed, Dick Martin!” she answered, with a cautious glance around her as if she feared that someone would observe the flush that had risen into her pretty face as he approached. “Be ashamed o’ yorese’f fur techin’ licker; last log-rollin’ you ‘lowed you’d tuk yore last dram. Paw ort to be churched fur settin’ temptation ‘fore so many young men. Ef I had my way the’ wouldn’t be a still, wild cat nur licensed, in the Co-hutta Mountains nowhar.”
“Shucks, Melissa!” exclaimed Dick. “Don’t git yore dander up ‘bout nothin’. I’m that anxious to git yore pap on my side I’d drink slop, mighty high, ef he ‘uz to ax me. He don’t like me, an’ blame me ef I know why, nuther. I ain’t been here in the last three Sunday nights ‘thout him a-callin’ you to bed most ‘fore dark. He didn’t raise no objections to Bill Miller a-stayin’ tell ‘leven o’clock last Tuesday night. Oh, I ain’t blind to hurt! Bill owns his own land and I havn’t a shovelful; thar’s the difference. He’s a-comin’ now, but mind you I’m agwine to set by you at shuckin’.”
The bright flush which had added such beauty to the girl’s face vanished as Bill Miller swaggered up and said with a loud voice, as he roughly shook her hand:
“Meliss’, kin I wait on you at shuckin’?”
“Dick’s jest this minute axed me,” she stammered, beginning to blush anew.
“Well, he ain’t axed to set on both sides uv you, I reckon. You’d be a uncommon quar pusson ef the’ wuz jest one side to you. What’s to keep me frum settin’ on tother side frum Dick?”
To this the farmer’s daughter made no reply, and as the guests were now starting to the barnyard she was escorted between the two rivals to the great coneshaped heap of unhusked corn gleaming in the pale moonlight.
“All keep yore feet an’ form a ring round the pile!” called out Bagley, so as to be overheard above the sound of their voices. “The’ ain’t no r’al fun ‘thout everything is conducted fa’r and squar’. Now” (as all the merrymakers stood hand in hand round the corn heap, Dick with one of Melissa’s hands in his tight clasp and his rival with the other) – “now, all march round an’ somebody start ‘King William Wuz King James’ Son,’ an’ when I tell you to halt set down right whar’
