The path up which the three soldiers were climbing was not a path at all in the sense of its having been worn by the feet of men or animals. It was at first a narrow ledge, and then the dry bed of a watercourse, which overflowed for a few days when the snows melted in the spring, and was walled in by an outer ledge, and turned upward at an easy incline which offered no serious obstacle to the progress of the explorers. The soldiers halted midway, and took off their oppressive overcoats and wiped their red faces.
The top of the mountain beyond the southern wall was about half the area of their own plateau, and, to the consternation of the three soldiers, in the very center of the tract stood a log house flanked by some tumble-down sheds. This unexpected discovery was so startling that they retreated below the bank for consultation. They had no doubt that the bees Philip had lined came from the hives of these people. If there were a bee-tree at all, they would not be allowed to cut it. Lieutenant Coleman was at first disposed to return without revealing themselves to the strangers. Their curiosity, however, was so roused, and their desire was so great to learn something of their neighbors, that the three soldiers crept back until only their heads were above the edge of the bank, and their wondering eyes fixed on the house. There might be women there, and from a sense of modesty each man got back into his old blue overcoat. They talked in husky whispers as they stared through the bushes, expecting every moment to see some one come out for a pail of water or an armful of wood.
"There\'s a man down there by the shed," whispered Philip; and so timid of their kind had the soldiers become after seven years of seclusion, during which they had not spoken to a human being, that they ducked their three heads in a tremble of excitement. Presently Bromley looked again, and almost laughed out loud; for the man was only a stump with something thrown over it that stirred with the wind.
There was no smoke from the chimney; but it was mid-way between breakfast and dinner, and fire was not to be expected at that hour in midsummer. There were no clothes hung out to dry, and no growing crops in sight; but there were small stacks of corn-stalks at different points on the field, and these were in every stage of decay, from the conical heap overgrown with vines to the flat mound of gray stalks through which the young chestnuts had sprouted and grown to a thrifty height. A forest of hop-vines grew over the eaves of the house, flaunting their green tendrils in the soft south wind, and giving an unmistakably home-like air to the place. As no one appeared after an hour\'s watching, it was more than likely that the family was absent for the day or asleep inside. The longer the soldiers waited, the greater their curiosity became, and then they remembered their scarcity of food, and felt the gold coins in their pockets. It would be foolish to return without buying something from these neighbor-people. Their vow was not to go down from the mountain; and if they neglected this opportunity to supply their wants, starvation would soon drive them into the Confederacy, vow or no vow.
Bromley, as usual, was the first to come to a decision; and then all three climbed boldly out upon the bank and prepared to visit the house. As they advanced over the grass they buttoned their overcoats more closely about their throats, and jingled the coins in their pockets to keep up their courage. They looked down at their bare feet and legs, which naturally made them timid at the prospect of meeting women; and so, huddled together for support, they crossed the dry chip dirt, and came around the corner of the house. The door stood open above the smooth stone step, and Bromley struck it with his knuckles, while his comrades waited behind him, feeling instinctively, in their momentary embarrassment, for their collars and wristbands, which had never before been out of their reach in the presence of the other sex. If they had been less embarrassed they would have noticed the utter absence of all signs of habitation outside the house, and that the door itself was sagging inward from its rusty hinges. The interior was darkened by the sliding boards which closed the windows, and gave forth a musty, earthy smell.
THE DESERTED HOUSE.
THE DESERTED HOUSE.
"There\'s nobody lives here," said Bromley, in his strong, natural voice, at which Coleman and Philip were startled into a small spasm of feeling again for their shirt-collars; and then, as he gave a kick to the lurching door, they dropped their nervous fingers and followed him in. Bromley opened one of the windows, which let in but a dim light because of the thick mat of hop-vines which had overgrown it. The first object that caught the eyes of the soldiers was a considerable library of books crowded together on three shelves above the fireplace.
Philip had his hand at once on the familiar cover of "Uncle Tom\'s Cabin"; Bromley took down a faded volume of the "Anti-Slavery Record" for the year 1836; and Coleman went outside the door to examine a small book which bore in gilded letters on the cover, "The Branded Hand." On the title-page there was a woodcut of a hand with two S\'s on the open palm. The story was of the trial and imprisonment of Jonathan Waller, or Walker, at Pensacola, Florida; and a few pages on, the author was shown dripping with perspiration in the pillory. This book had been published in 1845, and Lieutenant Coleman dropped it on the door-step and hastened back to find something more modern. In fact, the three soldiers were moved by the same desire to find something—anything—that had been printed since the year 1864. So it was with the greatest disgust that they took from the lower shelf and threw down, one after another, such ancient history as "Captain Canot; or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver," 1854; "The Alton Riots," by Rev. Edward Beecher, 1838; "Abolition a Sedition," 1839; "Memoir of Rev. Elijah P. Lovejoy," 1838; and "Slavery Unmasked," 1856. There were other curious works on the same subject, bearing equally remote dates.
On the second shelf there was a mixed collection of thin periodicals in blue, yellow, and gray covers, such as "The Quarterly Anti-Slavery Magazine," "The Emancipator," and "The Slave\'s Friend," and several volumes of speeches by William Lloyd Garrison and Wendell Phillips, bearing date as late as 1858.
The upper shelf was filled with small books and pamphlets on temperance and prohibition, not one of which had been published since the year 1852.
Lieutenant Coleman and Bromley were so keenly disappointed at finding among so many books nothing that threw any light on the state of the country since their arrival on the mountain, that they were almost tempted to throw the library into the fireplace and burn it up by starting a fire with their flints.
The perfect order in which the books had been arranged was strangely in contrast with the otherwise wrecked condition of the room. The excitement of the soldiers on seeing the library had prevented them from noticing that the hearthstone had been wrenched from its original position, and that the earth had been dug out to some depth beneath it and thrown in a heap against the edge of the single bunk by the south wall. Stones had been pried from the back of the chimney, and there was abundant evidence that some person had been hunting for treasure. The rusty spade with which the digging had been done lay in the fireplace, where it had been thrown by the baffled robber. The bedtick had been ripped open with a knife, and the straw with which it had been filled was scattered over the dry earth on the floor. The blankets and everything of value in the house had been carried away. It might be that murder had been committed here as well as robbery. As there was no stain of blood on the mattress or on the floor, Lieutenant Coleman concluded that the robber was only a cowardly thief who had stolen the property from the deserted cabin. It would seem, however, that this man had had some knowledge of the dead mountaineer which had caused him to suspect that there was hidden treasure in the house. Possibly he had found what he sought.
The discovery of the house and its contents was so startling that the soldiers forgot all about the bee-tree they had come in search of. The absence of everything in the nature of food forced itself upon their minds, as they felt the coins in their pockets. There might be corn in one of the tumbledown outhouses. Both were sadly decayed and broken by the winds and storms to which the strong walls and good roof of the house had not yet yielded. The first shed contained a small heap of wood and a rusty ax, and the other appeared to have been used as a cow-stall.
The paths were overgrown with grass, which indicated that years had passed since the place had been inhabited. The good order in which the books had been left led the soldiers to doubt if the place had been visited since the robber had gone away. It was true that the library was of a character that would be undesirable in a slaveholding Confederacy; and if any one had seen it since the robbery, it was strange that he had not destroyed the objectionable books.
This state of things was so puzzling to Lieutenant Coleman and his comrades that they set out at once to make the circuit of this small tract on the mountain-top, which they naturally believed must be somewhat difficult of access. There must be a road that led to it. The robber might have climbed ov............