Part 8

The Chieftain, a small freight steamer, had recently taken the place of the old flat-bottomed scows, and, as the steam whistle was still a novelty, it is not surprising that Ung Jerry, in his terror, should for the moment have mistaken it for some unearthly sound.

After many irresolute pauses, the old man at length reached the scene of the disaster, and with shaking hands thrust aside the bushes. Except for the small birds silently flitting to their roosts, the place was utterly deserted. The level sunbeams glinted through the gray moss, gilded the tree trunks, and glowed crimson upon the brown leaves; the solitary peace of nature seemed unbroken; only the pool of blood at Ung Jerry's feet told him that what he had witnessed had not been a vision.

After a moment's survey he was turning away, when his eyes fell upon the two guns: here, at least, was something tangible, and the old man proceeded to secrete them in the fallen leaves. Squatted upon the ground, he was too busily engaged to note the sound of approaching footsteps, and started violently when a rough voice accosted him. He mustered courage, however, to quaver:--

"Dat you, Mars Jones?"

"Me? of course it's me! Who did you reckon it was?"

"I dunno, Mars Jones."

"Well, you'll know next time, if you don't keep them hogs o' yourn out of my corn. Why, that confounded old sow can destroy more corn in one night than you are worth."

"Yes, Mars Jones, dat de trufe," meekly assented the old man.

Mars Jones, warming to the subject, now waxed more and more eloquent over his grievances, until, having exhausted his pent up wrath, he had leisure to observe old Jerry's ashen face and shaking limbs, and he exclaimed:--

"Why, what's the matter with you? are you sick?"

"Yes, Mars Jones, I's been po'ly dis liblong day, an' I's gittin' sassifrax for to make me a little drap o' tea, I's got sich a mis'ry."

"Sassafras!" here broke in Mars Jones; and, good-natured, despite his roughness, he took from his pocket a tickler, and handing Jerry a dram, said:

"Drink this, you old blockhead. Sassifrax, indeed!--what good you reckon sassifrax goin' do you?"

With a scrape and a bow and a "Thank ye, Marster," the old man gulped down the dram, and Mars Jones, replacing his tickler, was turning away, when his foot slipped in something, and looking down he saw that it was blood.

The dram had put so much heart into the old man that he was able to reply glibly to Mars Jones's questions.

"Its jes' wha' I's been markin' hogs, Marster."

"I don't believe you; I believe you've been killin' one of your master's hogs--that's what you've been at."

But as this did not concern him, he did not wait to inquire further, and so, turning on his heel, he strode off.

The hog-feeder, too, hastening away, took the shortest path back to his cart.

The deserted barnyard lay silent in the white moonlight when the little cart creaked through the gate; but up at the "great house" there were lights and movements where the family watched the coming of the boys.

Thursday, Friday, and Saturday passed without tidings, and the hope that they had been caught by the rising water and imprisoned upon some isolated knoll had been abandoned after the swamps had been searched in every direction. To add to the grief of the household, the master, already enfeebled, now lay prostrated in a condition that almost forbade hope.

Upon Sunday the waters began to abate, fences again appeared, and patches of drowned corn showed themselves above the wastes of water, to the no small joy of the flocks of blackbirds which chattered and fluttered amongst them.

Mr. Jones, tired of the loneliness of his water-girt home, made his way to the meeting-house, more for the sake of a gossip with some of the neighbors than for the day's preaching, and it was there that he first heard the startling news of the unaccountable disappearance of Squire Brace's nephews.

In the excitement, each man was eager to advance his own theory. The discussion ended, however, in the general opinion that their canoe had been swamped in the freshet and the boys drowned, until a newcomer asserted that the canoe, with Phil's overcoat still in it, had been found tied up at the Vine Ridge landing, and that their guns had been discovered hidden in the leaves at no great distance in the swamp.

Upon hearing this, Mr. Jones could but call to mind his meeting with the hog-feeder, his strange behavior, and the blood upon the ground, and he at once jumped to the conclusion that old Jerry had been at least a party to some foul deed. His suspicions, once made known, became certainties, and the whole party, hastily mounting their horses, rode off to the nearest justice, their convictions gaining ground so rapidly that, ere the house of the justice was reached, poor, simple old Jerry, the most harmless of God's creatures, had become in their estimation a villain of the deepest dye.

Upon this identical Sunday morning the old hog-feeder betook himself to the little plantation church, whose bell, with cracked clamor, gave warning that preaching was about to begin.

The frosty brightness of the past week had given place to a soft mist, through whose dimness the pale sunbeams looked sadly upon the autumnal world; and as the old man, dressed in his Sunday clothes, plodded along the path, the tiny crickets from beneath the grass sent up their sad, perpetual dirge.

Men and women, all shining with Sabbath cleanness, came straggling toward the church, silently and soberly, without the usual light-hearted laughter, for the trouble at the "great house" was felt by all the little band. Yet their feelings were not without a mixture of pleasurable excitement, for all were anticipating with gloomy satisfaction the lengthy prayers, the groanings, and the head-shakings upon this mournful day.