Mr. Sanders is supposed to be on his way to Savannah on the same train with Cephas and Captain Falconer, supposing the train to be on time. Nevertheless, it is necessary to give a further account of his movements before he started on the journey that was to prove to be such an important event in Gabriel's career.
On the third morning after the arrest of the young men, Mrs. Lumsden expressed a desire to see Mr. Sanders, but he was nowhere to be found. Many sympathetic persons, including Nan Dorrington, joined in the search, but it proved to be a fruitless one. As a matter of fact, Mr. Sanders had gone to bed early the night before, but a little after midnight he awoke with a start. This was such an unusual experience that he permitted it to worry him. He had had no dream, he had heard no noise; yet he had suddenly come out of a sound and refreshing sleep with every faculty alert. He struck a match, and looked at his watch. It was a quarter to one.
"I wish, plague take 'em!" he said with a snort, "that somebody would whirl in an' make a match that wouldn't smifflicate the whole house an' lot."
He lit the candle, and then proceeded to draw on his clothes. In the course of this proceeding, he lay back on the bed with his hands under his head. He lay thus for some minutes, and then suddenly jumped to his feet with an exclamation. He put on his clothes in a hurry, and went out to the stables, where he gave his horse a good feed—seventeen ears of corn and two bundles of fodder.
Then he returned to the house, and rummaged around until he found a pitcher of buttermilk and a pone of corn-bread, which he disposed of deliberately, and with great relish. This done, he changed his clothes, substituting for those he wore every day the suit he wore on Sundays and holidays. When all these preparations were complete, the hands of his watch stood at quarter past three. He had delayed and dillydallied in order to give his horse time to eat. The animal had taken advantage of the opportunity, for when Mr. Sanders went to the stables, the Racking Roan was playfully tossing the bare cobs about in the trough with his flexible upper lip.
"Be jigged ef your appetite ain't mighty nigh as good as mine," he remarked, whereupon the roan playfully bit at him. "Don't do that, my son," protested Mr. Sanders. "Can't you see I've got on my Sunday duds?"
To bridle and saddle the horse was a matter of a few moments only, and when Mr. Sanders mounted, the spirited horse was so evidently in for a frolic that he was going at a three-minute gait by the time the rider had thrown a leg over the saddle.
A horseback ride, when the weather is fine and the sun is shining, is a very pleasing experience, but it is not to be compared to a ride in the dark, provided you are on good terms with your horse, and are familiar with the country. You surrender yourself entirely to the creature's movements, and if he is a horse equipped with courage, common-sense and energy, you are lifted entirely out of your everyday life into the regions of romance and derring-do—whatever that may be. There is no other feeling like it, no other pleasure to be compared to it; all the rest smell of the earth.
"I'm sorter glad I lit that match," Mr. Sanders remarked to the horse. "It's like gittin' a whiff of the Bad Place, an' then breathin' the fresh air of heav'n." The reply of the roan was a sharp affirmative snort.
The sun was just rising when Mr. Sanders rode into Halcyondale. Coincident with his arrival, the train from Atlanta came in with a tremendous clatter. There was much creaking and clanking as it slowed up at the modest station. It paused just long enough for the mail-bag and a trunk to be thrown off with a bang, and then it went puffing away. Short as the pause had been, one of the passengers, in the person of Colonel Bolivar Blasengame, had managed to escape from it. The Colonel, with his valise in his hand, paused to watch the train out of sight, and then leisurely made his way toward his home. To reach that point, he was compelled to cross the public square, and as he emerged from the side street leading to the station, he met Mr. Sanders, who had also been watching the train.
"Hello, Colonel, how are you? We belong apparently to the early bird society."
"Good-morning, Mr. Sanders," replied the Colonel, with a smile of friendly welcome. "What wind has blown you over here?"
"Why, I want to see Major Perdue. You know we have had trouble in our settlement."
"And you want to see Tomlin because you have had trouble; but why is it, Mr. Sanders, that your people never think of me when you have trouble? Am I losing caste in your community?"
"Well, you know, Colonel, you haven't been over sence the year one; an' then the Major is kinder kin to one of the chaps that's been took off."
"Exactly; but did it ever occur to you that whoever is kin to Tomlin is a little kin to me," remarked the Colonel. "Tomlin is my brother-in-law—But where are you going now?"
"Well, I thought I would go to the tavern, have my hoss put up an' fed, git a snack of somethin' to eat, an' then call on the Major."
"You hadn't heard, I reckon, that the tavern is closed, and the livery-stable broke up," said the Colonel, by way of giving the visitor some useful information.
At that moment a negro came out on the veranda of the hotel—only the older people called it a tavern—and rang the bell that meant breakfast in half an hour.
"What's that?" inquired Mr. Sanders, though he knew well enough.
"It's pure habit," replied the Colonel. "That nigger has been ringing the bell so long that he can't quit it. Anyhow, you can't go to the tavern, and you can't go to Tomlin's. He's got a mighty big family to support, Tomlin has. He's fixin' up to have a son-in-law, and he's already got a daughter, and old Minervy Ann, who brags that she can eat as much as she can cook. No, you can't impose on Tomlin."
"Then, what in the world will I do?" Mr. Sanders asked with a laugh. He was perfectly familiar with the tactics of the Colonel.
"Well, there wasn't any small-pox or measles at my house when I left day before yesterday. Suppose we go there, and see if there's anything the matter. If the stable hasn't blown away or burned down, maybe you'll find a place for your horse, and then we can scuffle around maybe, and find something to eat. That's a fine animal you're on. He's the one, I reckon, that walked the stringer, after the bridge had been washed away. I never could swallow that tale, Mr. Sanders."
"Nor me nuther," replied Mr. Sanders. "All I know is that he took me across the river one dark night after a fresh, an' some folks on t'other side wouldn't believe I had come across. They got to the place whar the bridge ought to 'a' been long before dark, and they found it all gone except one stringer. I seed the stringer arterwards, but I never could make up my mind that my hoss walked it wi' me a-straddle of his back."
"Still, if he was my horse," Colonel Blasengame remarked, "I wouldn't take a thousand dollars for him, and I reckon you've heard it rumoured around that I haven't got any more money than two good steers could pull."
Mr. Sanders turned his horse's head in the direction that Colonel Blasengame was going, and when they arrived at his home, he stopped at the gate. "Mr. Sanders," he said, taking out his watch, "I'll bet you two dollars and a half to a horn button that breakfast will be ready in ten minutes, and that everything will be fixed as if company was expected."
And it was true. By the time the horse had been put in the stable and fed, breakfast was ready, and when Mr. Sanders was ushered into the room, Mrs. Blasengame was sitting in her place at the table pouring out coffee. She was a frail little woman, but her eyes were bright with energy, and she greeted the unexpected guest as cordially as if he had come on her express invitation. She had little to say at any time, but when she spoke her words were always to the purpose.
"What did you accomplish?" she asked her husband, after Mr. Sanders, as in duty bound, had praised the coffee and the biscuit, and the meal was well under way.
"Nothing, honey; not a thing in the world. I thought the boys had been carried to Atlanta, but they are at Fort Pulaski."
Mrs. Blasengame said nothing more, and the Colonel was for talking about something else, but the curiosity of Mr. Sanders was aroused.
"What boys was you referrin' to, Colonel?" he asked.
"I don't like to tell you, Mr. Sanders," replied Colonel Blasengame, "but if you'll take no offence, I'll say that the boys are from a little one-horse country settlement called Shady Dale, a place where the people are asleep day and night. A parcel of Yankees went over there the other night, snatched four boys out of their beds, and walked off with them."
"That's so," Mr. Sanders assented.
"Yes, it's so," cried the Colonel hotly. "And it's a——" He caught the eye of his wife and subsided. "Excuse me, honey; I'm rather wrought up over this thing. What worries me," he went on, "is that the boys were yerked out of bed, and carried off, and then their own families went to sleep again. But suppose they didn't turn over and go back to sleep: doesn't that make matters worse? I can't understand it to save my life. Why, if it had happened here, the whole town would have been wide awake in ten minutes, and the boys would never have been carried across the corporation line. Tomlin is mighty near wild about it. If I hadn't gone to Atlanta, he would have gone; and you know how he is, honey. Somebody would have got hurt."
Yet, strange to say, Major Tomlin Perdue was far cooler and more deliberate than his brother-in-law, Colonel Blasengame. It was the peculiarity of each that he was anxious to assume all the dangerous responsibilities with which the other might be confronted; and the only serious dispute between the two men was in the shape of a hot controversy as to which should call to account the writer of a card in which Major Perdue was criticised somewhat more freely than politeness warranted.
"You are correct in your statement about the four boys bein' took away," said Mr. Sanders, "but you'll have to remember that the woods ain't so full of Blasengames an' Perdues as they used to be; an' you ain't got in this town a big, heavy balance-wheel the size an' shape of Meriwether Clopton."
"Yes, dear, you were about to be too hasty in your remarks," suggested Mrs. Blasengame. Her soft voice had a strangely soothing effect on her husband. "If some of our young men had been seized, all of us, including you, my dear, would have been in a state of paralysis, just as our friends in Shady Dale were."
"The only man in town that know'd it," Mr. Sanders explained, "was Silas Tomlin. He was sleepin' in the same room wi' Paul, an' they rousted him out, an' took him along. They carried him four or five mile. He had to walk back, an' by the time he got home, the sun was up."
"That puts a new light on it," said the Colonel, "and Tomlin will be as glad to hear it as I am. But I wonder what the rest of the State will think of us."
"My dear, didn't these young men, and the Yankees who arrested them, take the train here?" inquired Mrs. Blasengame. She nodded to Mr. Sanders, and a peculiar smile began to play over that worthy's features.
"By George! I believe they did, honey!" exclaimed the Colonel.
"And in broad daylight?" persisted the lady.
To this the Colonel made no reply, and Mr. Sanders became the complainant. "I dunner what we're comin' to," he declared, "when a passel of Yankees can yerk four of our best young men on a train in this town in broad daylight, an' all the folks a-stanin' aroun' gapin' at 'em, an' wonderin' what they're gwine to do next."
"Say no more, Mr. Sanders; say no more—the mule is yours." This in the slang of the day meant that the point at issue had been surrendered.
"I suppose Lucy Lumsden is utterly crushed on Gabriel's account," remarked Mrs. Blasengame.
"Crushed!" exclaimed Mr. Sanders; "no, ma'am! not much, if any. She's fightin' mad."
"I know well how she feels," said the pale, bright-eyed little woman. "It is a pity the men can't have the same feeling."
"Why, honey, what good would it do?" the Colonel asked, somewhat querulously.
"It would do no good; it would do harm—to some people."
"And yet," said the Colonel, turning to Mr. Sanders with a protesting frown on his face, "when I want to show some fellow that I'm still on top of the ground, or when Tomlin takes down his gun and goes after some rascal, she makes such a racket that you'd think the world was coming to an end."
"A racket! I make a racket? Why, Mr. Blasengame, I'm ashamed of you! the idea!"
"Well, racket ain't the word, I reckon; but you look so sorry, honey, that to me it's the same as making a racket. It takes all the grit out of me when I know that you are sitting here, wondering what minute I'll be brought home cut into jiblets, or shot full of holes."
Mrs. Blasengame laughed, as she rose from the table. She stood tiptoe to pin a flower in her husband's button-hole.
"You've missed a good deal, Mr. Sanders," said the Colonel, stooping to kiss his wife. "You don't know what a comfort it is to have a little bit of a woman to boss you, and cuss you out with her eyes when you git on the wrong track."
"Yes," said Mr. Sanders, "I allers feel like a widower when I see a man reely in love wi' his wife. It's a sight that ain't as common as it used to be. We'll go now, if you're ready, an' see the Major. I ain't got much time to tarry."
"Oh, you want me to go too?" said the Colonel eagerly. "Well, I'm your man; you can just count on me, no matter what scheme you've got on hand."
They went to Major Perdue's, and were ushered in by Minervy Ann. "I'm mighty glad you come," said she; "kaze 'taint been ten minnits sence Marse Tomlin wuz talkin' 'bout gwine over dar whar you live at; an' he ain't got no mo' business in de hot sun dan a rabbit is got in a blazin' brushpile. Miss Vallie done tole 'im so, an' I done tole 'im so. He went ter bed wid de headache, an' he got up wid it; an' what you call dat, ef 'taint bein' sick? But, sick er well, he'll be mighty glad ter see you."
Aunt Minervy Ann made haste to inform the Major that he had visitors. "I tuck 'em in de settin'-room," she said, "kaze dat parlour look ez cold ez a funer'l. It give me de shivers eve'y time I go in dar. De cheers set dar like dey waitin' fer ter make somebody feel like dey ain't welcome, an' dat ar sofy look like a coolin'-board."
Mr. Sanders was very much at home in the Major's house; he had dandled Vallie on his knee when she was a baby; and he had made the Major's troubles his own as far as he could. Consequently the greeting he received was as cordial as he could have desired. "Major," he said, when he found opportunity to state the nature of his business, "do you know young Gabe Tolliver?"
"Mighty well—mighty well," responded Major Perdue, "and a fine boy he is. He'll make his mark some day."
"Not onless we do somethin' to help him out. They ain't no way in the world he can prove that he didn't kill that feller Hotchkiss. Ike Varner done the killin', but he's gone, an' I think his wife is fixin' to go to Atlanta. They've got the dead wood on Gabriel. They ain't no case at all ag'in the rest; but you know how Gabriel is—he goes moonin' about in the fields both day an' night, an' it's mighty hard for to put your finger on him when you want him. An' to make it wuss, Hotchkiss called his name more'n once before he died. It looks black for Gabriel, an' we must do somethin' for him."
Major Perdue leaned forward a little, a frown on his face, and stretched forth his left hand, in the palm of which he placed the forefinger of his right. "I'll tell you what, Mr. Sanders, I'm just as much obliged to you for coming to me as if you had saved me from drowning. I have come to the point where I can't hold in much longer, and maybe you'll keep me from making a fool of myself. I'll say beforehand, I don't care what your plan is; I don't care to know it—just count on me."
"And where do I come in?" Colonel Blasengame inquired.
"Right by my side," responded Major Perdue.
Without further preliminaries, Mr. Sanders set forth the details of the programme that had arranged itself in his mind, and when he was through, Major Perdue leaned back in his chair, and gazed with admiration at the bland and child-like countenance of this Georgia cracker. The innocence of childhood shone in Mr. Sanders's blue eyes.
"I swear, Mr. Sanders, I'm sorry I didn't have the pleasure of serving with you in Virginia. If there is anything in this world that I like it's a man with a head on him, and that's what you've got. You can count on us if we are alive. I don't know how Bolivar feels about it, but I feel that you have done me a great favour in thinking of me in connection with this business. You couldn't pay either of us a higher compliment."
"Tomlin expresses my views exactly," said Colonel Blasengame; "yet I feel that one of us will be enough. It may be that your scheme will fail, and that those who are engaged in it will have to take the consequence. Now, I'd rather take 'em alone than to have Tumlin mixed up with it."
"Fiddlesticks, Bolivar! you couldn't keep me out of it unless you had a bench-warrant served on me five minutes before the train left, and if you try that, I'll have one served on you. Now, don't forget to tell Tidwell that I'll be glad to renew that dispute. I bear no malice, but when it comes to a row, I don't need malice to keep my mind and my gun in working order. I'm going down to Malvern to-morrow, and before I come away, I'll have everything fixed. There are some details, you know, that never occurred to you: the police, for instance. Well, the chief of police is a very good friend of mine, and the major was Bolivar's adjutant."
"Well, I thank the Lord for all his mercies!" cried Mr. Sanders; and he meant what he said.