_ CHAPTER III. TROUBLE AT SCRATCH HILL
Captain Murrell had established himself at Balaam's Cross Roads. He was supposed to be interested in the purchase of a plantation, and in company with Crenshaw visited the numerous tracts of land which the merchant owned; but though he professed delight with the country, he was plainly in no haste to become committed to any one of the several propositions Crenshaw was eager to submit. Later, and still in the guise of a prospective purchaser, he met Bladen, who also dealt extensively in land, and apparently if anything could have pleased him more than the region about the Cross Roads it was the country adjacent to Fayetteville.
From the first he had assiduously cultivated his acquaintance with the new owners of the Barony. He was now on the best of terms with Nat Ferris, and it was at the Barony that he lounged away his evenings, gossiping and smoking with the planter on the wide veranda.
"The Barony would have suited me," he told Bladen one day. They had just returned from an excursion into the country and were seated in the lawyer's office.
"You say your father was a friend of the old general's?" said Bladen.
"Years ago, in the north--yes," answered Murrell.
"Odd, isn't it, the way he chose to spend the last years of his life, shut off like that and seeing no one?"
Murrell regarded the lawyer in silence for a moment out of his deeply sunk eyes.
"Too bad about the boy," he said at length slowly.
"How do you mean, Captain?" asked Bladen.
"I mean it's a pity he has no one except Yancy to look after him," said Murrell, but Bladen showed no interest and Murrell went on. "Don't you reckon he must have touched General Quintard's life mighty close at some point?"
"Well, if so, it eluded me," said Bladen. "I went through General Quintard's papers and they contained no clue to the boy's identity that I could discover. Fact is, the general didn't leave much beyond an old account-book or two; I imagine that before his death he destroyed the bulk of his private papers; it looked as if he'd wished to break with the past. His mind must have been affected."
"Has Yancy any legal claim on the boy?" inquired Murrell.
"No, certainly not; the boy was merely left with Yancy because Crenshaw didn't know what else to do with him."
"Get possession of him, and if I don't buy land here I'll take him West with me," said Murrell quietly. Bladen gave him a swift, shrewd glance, but Murrell, smiling and easy, met it frankly. "Come," he said, "it's a pity he should grow up wild in the pine woods--get him away from Yancy--I am' willing to spend five hundred dollars on this if necessary."
"As a matter of sentiment?"
"As a matter of sentiment."
Bladen considered. He was not averse to making five hundred dollars, but he was decidedly averse to letting slip any chance to secure a larger sum. It flashed in upon him that Murrell had uncovered the real purpose of his visit to North Carolina; his interest in land had been merely a subterfuge.
"Well?" said Murrell.
"I'll have to think your proposition over," said Bladen.
The immediate result of this conversation was that within twenty-four hours a man driving two horses hitched to a light buggy arrived at Scratch Hill in quest of Bob Yancy, whom he found at dinner and to whom he delivered a letter. Mr. Yancy was profoundly impressed by the attention, for holding the letter at arm's length, he said,
"Well, sir, I've lived nigh on to forty years, but I never got a piece of writing befo'--never, sir. People, if they was close by, spoke to me, if at a distance they hollered, but none of 'em ever wrote." After gazing at the written characters with satisfaction Mr. Yancy made a taper of the letter and lit his pipe, which he puffed meditatively. "Sonny, when you grow up you must learn so you can send writings to yo' Uncle Bob fo' him to light his pipe with."
"What was in the paper, Uncle Bob?" asked Hannibal.
"Writin'," said Mr. Yancy, and smoked.
"What did the writin' say, Uncle Bob?" insisted the boy.
"It was private," said Mr. Yancy, "very private."
"What's your answer?" demanded the stranger.
"That's private, too," said Mr. Yancy. "You tell him I'll be monstrous glad to talk it over with him any time he fancies to come out here."
"He said something about some one I was to carry back with me," objected the man.
"Who said that?" asked Mr. Yancy.
"Bladen did."
"How's a body to know who yore talking about unless you name him?" said Yancy severely.
"Well, what am I to tell him?"
"It's a free country and I got no call to dictate. You-all can tell him whatever you like." Further than this Mr. Yancy would not commit himself, and the man went as he came.
The next day Yancy had occasion to visit Balaam's Cross Roads. Ordinarily Hannibal would have gone with him, but he was engaged in digging out a groundhog's hole with Oglethorpe Bellamy, grandson of Uncle Sammy Bellamy, the patriarch of Scratch Hill. Mr. Yancy forbore to interrupt this enterprise which he considered of some educational value, since the ground-hog's hole was an old one and he was reasonably certain that a family of skunks had taken possession of it. When Yancy reached the Cross Roads, Crenshaw gave him a disquieting opinion as to the probable contents of his letter, for he himself had heard from Bladen that he had decided to assume the care of the boy.
"So you reckon it was that--" said Yancy, with a deep breath.
"It's a blame outrage, Bob, fo' him to act like this!" said the merchant with heat.
"When do you reckon he's going to send fo' him?" asked Yancy.
"Whenever the notion strikes him."
"What about my having notions too?" inquired Yancy, flecked into passion, and bringing his fist down on the counter with a crash.
"You surely ain't going to oppose him, Bob?"
"Does he say when he's going to send fo' my nevvy?"
"He says it will be soon."
"You take care of my mule, Mr. John," said Yancy, and turned his back on his friend.
"I reckon Bladen will have the law on his side, Bob!"
"The law be damned--I got what's fair on mine, I don't wish fo' better than that," exclaimed Yancy, over his shoulder. He strode from the store and started down the sandy road at a brisk run. Miserable forebodings of an impending tragedy leaped up within him, and the miles were many that lay between him and the Hill.
"He'll just naturally bust the face off the fellow Bladen sends!" thought Crenshaw, staring after his friend.
That run of Bob Yancy's was destined to become a classic in the annals of the neighborhood. Ordinarily a man walking briskly might cover the distance between the Cross Roads and the Hill in two hours. He accomplished it in less than an hour, and before he reached the branch that flowed a full quarter of a mile from his cabin he was shouting Hannibal's name as he ran. Then as he breasted the slope he came within sight of a little group in his own dooryard. Saving only Uncle Sammy Bellamy, the group resolved itself into the women and children of the Hill, but there was one small figure he missed, and the color faded from his cheeks while his heart stood still. The patriarch hurried toward him, leaning on his cane, while his grandson clung to the skirts of his coat, weeping bitterly.
"They've took your nevvy, Bob!" he cried, in a high, thin voice.
"Who's took him?" asked Yancy hoarsely. He paused and glanced from one to another of the little group.
"Hit were Dave Blount. Get your gun, Bob, and go after him--kill the miserable sneaking cuss!" cried Uncle Sammy, who believed in settling all difficulties by bloodshed as befitted a veteran of the first war with England, he having risen to the respectable rank of sergeant in a company of Morgan's riflemen; while at sixty-odd in '12, when there was recruiting at the Cross Roads, his son had only been able to prevent his tendering his services to his country by hiding his trousers. "Fetch his rifle, some of you fool women!" cried Uncle Sammy. "By the Fayetteville Road, Bob, not ten minutes ago--you can cut him off at Ox Road forks!"
Yancy breathed a sigh of relief. The situation was not entirely desperate, for, as Uncle Sammy said, he could reach the Ox Road forks before Blount possibly could, by going as the crow flies through the pine woods.
"Hit wouldn't have happened if there'd been a man on the Hill, but there was nothing but a passel of women about the place. I heard the boys crying when Dave Blount lifted your nevvy into the buggy," said Uncle Sammy; "all I could do was to cuss him across two fields. I hope you blow his hide full of holes!" for a rifle had been placed in Yancy's hands.
"Thank you-all kindly," said Yancy, and turning away he struck off through the pine woods. A brisk walk of twenty minutes brought him to the Ox Road forks, as it was called, where he could plainly distinguish the wheel and hoof marks left by the buggy and team as it went to Scratch Hill, but there was only the single track.
This important point being settled, sense of sweet peace stole in upon Yancy's spirit. He stood his rifle against a tree, lit his pipe with flint and steel, and rested comfortably by the wayside. He had not long to wait, for presently the buggy hove in sight; whereupon he coolly knocked the ashes from his pipe, pocketed it, and prepared for action. As the buggy came nearer he recognized his ancient enemy in the person of the man who sat at Hannibal's side, and stepping nimbly into the road seized the horses by their bits. At sight of him Hannibal shrieked his name in an ecstasy of delight.
"Uncle Bob--Uncle Bob--" he, cried.
"Yes, it's Uncle Bob. You can light down, Nevvy. I reckon you've rid far enough," said Yancy pleasantly.
"Leggo them horses!" said Mr. Blount, recovering somewhat from the effect of Yancy's sudden appearance.
"Light down, Nevvy," said Yancy, still pleasantly. Blount turned to the boy as if to interfere. "Don't you put the weight of yo' finger on the boy, Blount!" warned Yancy. "Light down, Hannibal!"
Hannibal instantly availed himself of the invitation. At the same moment Blount struck at Yancy with his whip and his horses reared wildly, thinking the blow meant for them. Seeing that the boy had reached the ground in safety, Yancy relaxed his hold on the team, which instantly plunged forward. Then as the buggy swept past him he made a dexterous grab at Blount and dragged him out over the wheels into the road, where, for the second time in his life, he proceeded to fetch Mr. Blount a smack in the jaw. This he followed up with other smacks variously distributed about his countenance.
"You'll sweat for this, Bob Yancy!" cried Blount, as he vainly sought to fend off the blows.
"I'm sweating now--scandalous," said Mr. Yancy, taking his unhurried satisfaction of the other. Then with a final skilful kick he sent Mr. Blount sprawling. "Don't let me catch you around these diggings again, Dave Blount, or I swear to God I'll be the death of you!"
Hannibal rode home through the pine woods in triumph on his Uncle Bob's mighty shoulders.
"Did you get yo' ground-hog, Nevvy?" inquired Mr. Yancy presently when they had temporarily exhausted the excitement of Hannibal's capture and recovery.
"It weren't a ground-hog, Uncle Bob--it were a skunk!"
"Think of that!" murmured Mr. Yancy. _