10. Safety First
The cause of the interruption was a gust from the opened door. Rex Currie strode into the room, to meet various ejaculations of resentment.
''You-all raised in a barn, Rex?" the old man roared.
"Such slush!" Thus Miss Emmy, but with a glance of exasperation at the disturber.
Sandyred contributed fromi the door, which he had closed:
"Even Verney never can learn you when you ain't wanted." The hillbilly reflected their impatience.
"You-all needn't be so uncivil," he said, "when I'm bringing you news."
"Which ain't much good, I reckon, if it won't keep a spell," objected Tom. "The world wa'n't made in a day. If you don't slow down some, young feller, you'll project yourelf clean outen it. Light the lamp and read some more, Verney. I want to know if that there two-gun girl fetches her targets."
"You'll be hunting a target of your own when you've heard my news," the young man insisted and produced a folded sheet of letter-paper from his pocket. "Let me help you down, honey. That's right - give me the lamp. Sit here by the fire and rest up."
The attentions to which Vernaluska submitted were not exactly usual In the Blue Ridge, but to be expected from Rex Currle. Although born and reared on the shank of Crumbly Bald, which lay just across the creek, he had "traveled" enough to wear off rough edges and take on a veneer of gallantry which went well with his sophisticated appearance.
With an Impatient fling, he tossed the paper to the disgruntled patriarch.
"I know there ain't no crowding you, Tom, when you're not In a hurry; but you'd best put this letter next on the entertainment bill."
Impressed, Old Tom opened the note deliberately, jerked his chair around so that the light of the replaced lamp fell directly upon it, cleared his throat. But no sound crossed his lips, no shade his expression, to the end.
When he had finished, he turned, not upon the messenger waiting with ill-repressed excitement, as though for an explosion, but upon his own daughter.
"Verney," he Inquired in a tone unusually mild for him, even when addressing her, "be there anything you-all have done gone and forgot to tell your pappy about your visit to the Gap yesterday?"
Vernaluska realized that the Issue for which she had tried to prepare was at hand; also that, despite her effort at control, her face was coloring. But she replied straightaway:
"Maybe you're harking to the stranger I yanked out from under the stage?"
"Maybe I be. H-m! Why the tight lip on him?"
Currle's eyes flashed. "I susplcloned yesterday she favored the dude; now I know It by the guiltylook of her. He's the kind that even a woman can keep a tight lip about."
"Jealous again, Rex?" was Sandyred's boisterous demand. "You're better at fiddling than hiding your feelings. What's In the letter, pap?"
The girl paid no attention. Her father's searching eyes still held hers, and she answered his standing question quietly.
' I calculated It wouldn't do any good to tell."
Again the old man cleared his throat, this time to read aloud with a regard to detail that Included the rubber-stamped heading of the sheet:
"Dismal Gap Post-Office and Emporium.
"Asa Simms, Prop.
"Dismal Gap, North Carolina.
"Dear Tom :
"This will inform you that the spy the drys sent Up North for is arrived and on the job. Come in on the stage yesterday, and made a bee-line for Plotts's. According to the prattle of Aunt Hootle, he was selected by Spencer Pope, who, in my humble opinion, is the slickest revenuer we ever drove out of the Carolinas. I spotted this new one quick as a flea, and served notice on him to leave. When he didn't scare, Rex and me had a lively idea of sending him out as a bundle, but don't ask how that worked out. Rexey gets all heated up when the fizzle is mentioned.
"They held a session over the champeen detector last night - Dryden, the Plotts, and others of the pestiferous. Somebody interrupted the party with a practical demonstration of how it feels to be hurried alive; but even that did not give their star guest the going-away-from-here hunch. This morning he headed out into the hills with the nigger that used to fetch for you. Claims to be an artist, here for his health, and a sickly looking object he is. I don't need to remind you that it ain't healthy out jour way. Short shrift is the advice of, "Yours fraternally,
"A. SiMMS.
"P. S. - As your Verney had first sight of the dressed-up two-yards-of-impudence, she can tell you, even if Rex won't just what he looks like. - A. S."
Before the last word of the postscript all eyes had swerved to the daughter of the house.
'' 'Pears to me you'd oughter have mentioned it some last night," said her brother. "What's the spy-critter like?"
"She was looking sugar at him when I happened on them," Currie interpolated. "Likely she's setting up to "
"Likelier she aint!" The old man's eyes glared bluer than the blue burn from the hearth. "You boys leave off pestering Verney to remember things she's seen fitten to forget. This ain't no business for the women folks nohow. Anything you-ali want to know about the scum - ask me."
"You, Tom? Have you seen him? When? Where?"
Vernaluska put the queries to her sly-smiling forebear with such eagerness that a shadow off Rex Currie's frown settled on Sandyred's face.
The old man's glance warned the younger pair.
"I met up with him this morning, headed for Dry Dryden's shack on Fallaway, like Asa's letter says. He was dressed up sure enough, and appeared to be in a right smart humor with himself. He's got quite a content of nerve, considering; but we-all ought to make short work of him."
Sandy's face cleared. "Tol'able short, by grace!" he laughed. "We'll trail him like his own soul and singe his nerve whenever he edges close up."
"Bump him off and be done with it, say I," contended Currie.
"First thing," Old Tom planned, with suppressed excitement, "is to get a holt on that no-good nigger, Cotton Eye. Never allowed I'd take him back, but we can't afford to have him running loose, with all he knows. You, Rex, ride down to Dismal early to-morrow morning and fetch him. He's afeared of you, so gaff him. He can do the chores around the place, freeing Sandy's time to "
"Why not let me trail the spy?" interrupted Currie. "I'm considerable older than Sandy."
"Older, hut!" Tom snorted, with frank depreciation. " 'Pears you've had two chances and failed, so likely you'll keep cooler tending to business as I point it for you. I'll manage along without the boy, one way or t'other."
"And what of me. Pappy Tom? Why leave me plumb out of it?"
There was a general straightening as Vernaluska arose, crossed to the family law-giver, and put her demand.
Severally, from him, Sandy, Rex, even from prim Miss Emmy, voices lifted.
"You, my gal?"
"You're going to be left outen it, sis, If I've got any say."
"All Dismal's talking already about your mix-up with this dude."
"Have you-uns forgot how to be a lady, Verney Metcalf? Your mother would be turning in her grave, knew she your goings-on."
But the girl looked only at the patriarch.
"Ain't I part and passel of this firm, Tom? Ain't I got ability above milking cow-brutes? Can't I ride, see, shoot? Don't I know every blackberryvine and 'dendron-bush from here to Fallaway? As for you, don't you need Sandy desperate to stand guard and spell you, stirring the mash over at the still?"
"What you aiming at, Verney?"
"Just this - let me trail the stranger."
Springing to his feet in a flare of protest, Currie seized her by the arm, forcefully tried to usurp her place before the old man.
But Vernaluska was not through, and held her ground.
"I'm the only one of us all that has time to find out if he really is the slick you suspect," she continued. "I'm not at all sure that he ain't what he says he is - a painter man, seeking health. He looked right peaked to me. Now that they've clapped the double-outlaw brand on our business we can't afford to be making unnecessary mistakes."
"I say no!" insisted Currie, as if prodded beyond endurance. "If we three men can't short-shrift one stray revenuer without calling on women folks, we're no good noway. I won't consent to Verney's mixing in on this."
She had a scornful look for his chivalry.
"Who asked leave of you?" she demanded.
"I tell you-all the girl's lightning-struck on the slick. Pulled him out of the mudhole single-handed, Tobe Riker says; washed his face and whisked the dirt off his fancy clothes. And in the store she led him on something indecent. It ain't to clear up Sandy's time that she's offering; It's to see personal that he don't get punctured before she has a chance to enjoy some more of his fine manners. It's just that or Rex Currie never guessed the buried card."
"You've done guessed this one wrong - that's certain sure!"
Old Tom also got to his feet and wrenched off the grip of the boot-legger from his daughter's arm. Shaking from a dislike of Currie which had been noticeable frequently of late, he faced him.
"What right you got to any say-so about Verney?" he demanded. "Talk about this stranger's impudence - there's only one excuse for you. You're plumb liquored up doting on the girl."
Sandyred, with Miss Emmy's chirping caution at his elbow, had closed In on the group.
"That don't leave him outen apologizing all around for saying she favors a revenue spy," he declared with youthful bluster, his likeness to the old man more conspicuous than at any moment hitherto.
Vernaluska glanced from one angry face to another, then startled all by lifting her voice In laughter.
"So It's three bears we have In this house?" she commented. "You two leave off grov/ling at the third. You're too hard on Rex. He'll apologize, I reckon, when I get time to listen. As for me, suppose you-all treat yourselves to a good long look at me"
She paused, threw back her head for the Invited Inspection. Her next demand was centered upon her father.
"Do I look like a Metcalf on the outside - or don't I? Do you calculate I'm soft-soap within?"
"YouVe always been smart-headed," he admitted, without grudge.
''Of course it ain't any credit to me If I am." She hastened to depreciate the compHment she had forced. "What for did you scrimp to send me two years across the mountain to school, if not to smarten up my head? You've got a better mind your own self, Tom Metcalf, and all I ask is for you to look at the case of this outsider. Whatever he be, dare we-all shoo him off the Ridge the rough way that, according to Asa's letter, has been tried twice and failed ? How long do you reckon it would be before the law would crimp us? It's tightening these days - the law. What kind of success have the old methods had against it?"
It was just as well that she did not pause for answers to her questions. None seemed ready with return.
'' 'Pears to me you'd ought to take command, Tom. And you need a cool-calculating person to help you decide whether this young man really be revenuer or painter - a person more like me than Sandy or Rex. If you say after due investigation that he Is a slick, then you and I will find some smarter-headed way of driving him out than by driving ourselves In against the wall. Come across, Tom; do I sound reasonable or not?"
"Dum reasonable."
His eyes alight with the gleam of admiration for his girl-child with which he had been listening and looking, the old fellow turned to the others of the group.
"Verney Is right. I've done gllmmed this foreigner over myself, and, like she says, he sure looks the part he claims. There's no way to make certain sure he's the officer expected without waiting for another one to show up or for him to commit himself."
"But he's committed himself already," Currie interposed. "Didn't he head straight for the Plotts?"
"And didn't you tell me yourself Tobe Riker had recommended him there?" the girl asked crisply.
"But what of his bribing Cotton Eye first-off for information about where to get a drink, and his mulishness about staying where he ain't wanted and his being among them present last night at Dryden's cave :
These exasperated demands Tom himself parried.
"Don't a'most everybody bribe somebody for a drink? As for mulishness, that's the best sign he's shown. And like as not It will turn out soon why and wherefore he attended that meetin'."
"Turn out?" Currie mocked the patriarch's mild tone. "When did you get into the doddering, turnout class, Tom Metcalf? Like as not you'll get down to depending on Providence before long. You let us handle this spy the way we've started and it won't be a jiffy until "
"Well, it will be a jiffy, say I!" Old Tom thumped the table to accentuate his roar. "Who gave you-uns leave to start, anyhow? Who's the leader of the wets yereabouts - me or Asa Simms? Who's got the most to lose? When you start off with another load of bumblings to-morrow. Rex, pass out the word that Fm watching this foreigner, and that I won't stand no outside Interference."
The hillbilly's face crimsoned.
"You may be the real leader of the wets," he admitted, "and you sure have got the most to lose; but that don't entitle you to give me orders, as I can see."
"Maybe that don't, but youVe entitled me your own self. Why have you hired out as my bootlegger if you ain't willing to take orders from me? It ain't likely, is it, now, that you could be nursing some other reason?"
"What other reason could I "
"Then you pass out that word I" Tom threatened. "If I iind that you hang around Dismal, you are chucked from this job, and out you go. We-all can't afford to have your trip postponed."
Rex Currie had taken himself in hand, and now shrugged his shoulders with the outward show of good nature that had made him so successful a retailer of blockade, quite as though he had not been surprised out of his very Intention.
"Of course, Tom, If you say so "
"And Is It also settled," inserted the girl, "that I'm to trail the stranger until he proves himself one way or tother?"
"It Is that - plumb settled!" Tom's tone was final, and he spared Currie a last antagonistic glare that closed further argument.
With appreciably less effort than she had expected, Vernaluska had won an important point In her campaign of safety first. She had persuaded her parent, the most rapacious wolf of the ridge where revenue suspects were concerned, to a most unusual course. Her suitor, under manipulation, not only had defeated his own ends, but actually had helped hers by accusing her of an ulterior interest in the foreigner - let her thanks excuse him.
Yet now, as at other times, she suspected more in Rex Currie than appeared on the surface. She had seen him color, then turn pale. She knew his temper - consequently approved when he showed the ability to master it. But before to-night she had known him to appear pliant when his will was taut.
So it came about that Calvin Parker, of the Parkers, was granted regional reprieve by the mountain girl. So, also, it came about that Vernaluska Metcalf decided she might advisedly watch other than the stranger to justify her stand.