When the three soldiers awoke on the morning which followed the kindling of the two fires, Philip was too ill to leave his bunk, and Lieutenant Coleman and Bromley were too weak to drag themselves as far as the rocks where the embers were still smoking. The sun was shining on their United States window, and when they looked out at the door, the old flag of thirty-five stars was floating bravely on the fresh wind.
"Three cheers for the stars and stripes, and for Sherman Territory!" cried Bromley, and the weak cheers so exhausted the two men that they sat down on the wooden bench in a state of collapse. Faint as they were from hunger, they were still fainter from thirst, and after a moment\'s rest they staggered over to the branch and drank their fill of the cool water, and laved their feverish faces in the stream. They brought a cup of the water to Philip who lay quietly in his bunk, and was altogether so weak that they were obliged to hold him up while he drank.
"There, there," said Coleman, as they eased him back on his pillow. "You must keep a good heart, for some one will surely come to us to-day."
Philip looked brighter for the draft of water, but he only smiled in reply. The sun was warm outside, but the act of drinking, while it had greatly revived and encouraged Coleman and Bromley, had so chilled their starved bodies that they put on their overcoats and buttoned them up to the throat. They could do no more in the way of calling for help than they had already done. Men had died of starvation before, and it might be their fate to perish of hunger, but they had a strong faith that the fires they had built for two nights on this uninhabited mountain would bring some one to their relief. They regretted now that the reading of the abolition books had influenced them to delay so long their appeal for help. To reach them their rescuers must fell one or more of the tall pines across the bridgeless gorge, but they were too weak to go down the ladders, and what wind there was blew across the mountain in the direction of the gorge, so that they would not be able to hear the sound of an ax a mile away. Time had never dragged so slowly before. The sun lay in at the open door, and by the marks they had made on the floor, as well as by the shadows cast by the trees outside, they could judge closely of the hour. They could hardly believe that it was only ten o\'clock in the morning, when it seemed as if they had already passed a whole day in vain hope of relief.
It was such a terrible thing to await starvation in the oppressive stillness of the mountain, that Bromley, almost desperate with listening, went to the branch and hung the bucket on the arm of the old Slow-John, which presently began to pound and splash in its measured way. Dismal as the sound was, it gave them something to count, and relieved their tired ears of the monotonous flapping of the flag and of the rustling of the barren corn-stalks.
They talked of the old man who had died alone on the other plateau. He, too, might have died of starvation. There were no signs of food in the deserted house when they had discovered it. They had never thought of it before, but his cunning agent might have been a villain after all. He might have grown weary at last of lugging casks up the mountain by moonlight, and getting the old man\'s gold by slow doles. He must have had some knowledge of the treasure for which he dug so persistently afterward, and in his greed to possess it he might have deliberately starved the old abolitionist. They thought of Hezekiah Wallstow burning beacon-fires in his extremity, when there was a good bridge to connect the mountain-top with the valley, and yet he was left to die alone. The thought was not encouraging to Coleman and Bromley in their weakened, nervous condition, and tended to make them more than ever distrustful of the natives to whom they had appealed.
They withheld these disturbing suspicions from Philip, but the more they pondered on the subject the more they were convinced of the barbarity of the Confederates, and of their determination to leave them to their fate.
Lieutenant Coleman wrote what he believed to be the last entry in the diary. It was November 7, 1871; and on the prepared paper of the book which treated of deep-sea fishing, he stated briefly their starving condition and their fruitless efforts to summon relief. They still had the tin box in which the adamantine candles had been stored, and into this Bromley helped to pack the leaves of the diary, already neatly tied in separate packages, and labeled for each year. If he had had a little more strength he would have carried it to the forge, and sealed the cover of the box which contained the record of their lives. As it was, they set it on the mantelpiece under the trophy formed of the station flags and the swords and carbines, and laid a weight on the lid.
After this was accomplished, Lieutenant Coleman lay down and turned his face to the wall, and Bromley seated himself on the bench outside the door, too stubborn to give up all hope of relief. The warm sun lighted the chip dirt at his feet, and seemed to glorify the bright colors of the old flag as it floated from the staff. He forgot his desperate situation for a moment, as his mind turned back to the battle-days when he had seen it waving in the sulphurous smoke. It gave him no comfort, however, to think of his old comrades and the dead generals and the cause that was lost; and when his eyes fell on the ground at his feet, he tried to keep them fixed on a tiny ant which came out of a crumbling log. The small thing was so full of life, darting and halting and turning this way and that! Now it disappeared under the log, and then it came out again, rolling a kernel of corn by climbing up on one side of the grain, to fall ignominiously down on the other. Bromley was just about to pounce on the grain of corn and crush it between his teeth when he heard a sound on the hill, and, raising his eyes, he saw two men coming on toward the house. They carried long bird-rifles on their shoulders, and to his starved vision they looked to be of gigantic size against the sky.
He could only cry out, "Fred! Fred! Here they come!"
"HE COULD ONLY CRY OUT, \'FRED! FRED! HERE THEY COME!"
"HE COULD ONLY CRY OUT, \'FRED! FRED! HERE THEY COME!"
These electric words brought Coleman\'s haggard face to the door, and even Philip turned in his blankets.
The strange dress and wild appearance of the two soldiers clinging to the door of the house, and the fantastic effect of the afternoon sun on the stained-glass window, as if the interior were on fire, so startled the strangers that they lowered their rifles to a position for defense, and turned from the direct approach, until they had gained a position among the rustling corn-stalks in front of the door. The various buildings and the evidence of cultivation on the mountain-top staggered the visitors, and the haggard faces of Coleman and Bromley led them to believe that they had come upon a camp of the fabled wild men of the woods. They had never seen a stained-glass window before, and to their minds it suggested some infernal magic, so the two valley-men stood elbow to elbow in an attitude for defense, and waited for the others to speak.
"Come on, neighbors," said Bromley, holding out his empty hands. "We are only three starving men."
One of the valley-men was tall and lank, and the other was sturdily built; and at these pacific words of Bromley they advanced, still keeping close together.
"We don\'t see but two," said the stout man, coming to a halt again. "Where\'s the other one at?"
"He\'s too weak to get out of his bunk," said Lieutenant Coleman. "For God\'s sake, have you brought us food?"
"That\'s just what we have," said the rosy-faced stout man, who came on without any further hesitation. "We\'ve brought ye a corn-pone. We \'lowed there might be some human critters starvin\' up here." With that he whisked about the thin man, and snatched a corn-loaf from the haversack on his back.
"How did you-all ever git here?" said the thin man. "Hit\'s seven year since the old bridge tumbled into the gorge."
There was no reply to this question, for Bromley was devouring his bread like a starved wolf, while Coleman had turned away to share his piece with Philip.
The eagerness with which they ate seemed to please the two valley-men, who were willing enough to wait a reasonable time for the information they sought. It was a fine opportunity to give some account of themselves, and the rosy-faced man made good use of it.
"We\'re plumb friendly," he said, "and mighty glad we brought along the bread, ain\'t we, Tom? Mightn\'t \'a\' done hit if hit hadn\'t \'a\' been for my old woman insistin\'. She \'lowed some hunter fellers had got up here and couldn\'t git down ag\'in, and she hild fast to that idea while she was a-bakin\' last night, time your fire was a-burnin\'. Hit certainly takes women folks to git the rights o\' things, don\'t hit, Tom? My name is Riley Hooper, and this yer friend o\' mine is Tom Zachary, and we\'re nothin\' if we ain\'t friendly."
Poor Philip was unable to swallow the dry bread, and Coleman came to the door with the golden cup in his hand, and begged one of the men to bring a cup of water from the branch. Tom Zachary hurried off on this mission of mercy.
"Hit\'s a wonder," he exclaimed, when he came back with the dripping cup, "that you-all ain\'t been pizoned afore this, drinkin\' out o\' brass gourds. That\'s what ailed Colum. Long time he had the greensickness. But his woman was cookin\' into a brass kittle, and that might \'a\' made some difference."
The two men now pressed into the house to see Philip, and Bromley, whose hands were at last empty, and whose strength was fast returning, came after them.
"I\'m jist nacherly put out," said Hooper, when he saw the condition of Philip, "that I didn\'t bring along somethin\' to warm up a cold stomic. Poor feller! Say, where\'s your fryin\'-pan at? I\'ll fix a dose for him. Here, Tom, wake up. Fill this skillet with water out o\' the branch, \'thout no flavor o\' brass into hit"; and as he spoke he whisked Tom around again, and took the haversack from his shoulders. "No, ye don\'t," said he to Bromley, who came forward for more bread. "No, ye don\'t, my boy. I\'ve viewed starvin\' humans afore. What you want to do is to go slow. A dose o\' gruel is jest the ticket for this yer whole outfit."
The rosy-faced man was too busy with the fire and the gruel, and too eager to improve the condition of the men he had rescued, to ask any disturbing questions; and Tom Zachary was so considerate, in the presence of actual starvation, that he seated himself on a three-legged stool, and stared at the stained-glass windows and the flags and the curious map on the wall. It was just as well that Bromley had removed the golden casters, years before, from the legs of the stools, when they were found to make ruts and furrows in the earthen floor. Tom Zachary would have been more astonished than ever if he had found himself rolling about on double-eagles.
When the hot gruel had been served, Philip was so much revived............