Part 29

"It's a lie, afore you tell it; it's a lie, cuss you, and you knows it. I'd sooner take a nigger's word than yours, Jem, any how, for the darned niggers will tell the truth when they can't git no good by lyin', but you, you will lie all times! When the truth would do the best, and you would tell it if you could, you can't help lyin'!"

"Shut up, you old thief; shut up instantly, and let the man speak, will you; I can see by his face that he has got something to tell; and as for lying, you beat him at it any day."

Tom was about to answer, when Harry, who had been eagerly engaged in mixing a huge tumbler-full of strong cold shrub punch, thrust it under his nose, and he, unable to resist the soft seductive odor, seized it incontinently, and neither spoke nor breathed again until the bottom of the rummer was brought parallel to the ceiling; then, with a deep heart-felt sigh, he set it down; and, with a calm placid smile, exclaimed, "Tell on, Jem." Whereupon that worthy launched into his full tide of narrative, as follows:

"Well, you sees, Mr. Aircher, I tuk up this mornin' clean up the old crick side, nigh to Vernon, and then I turned in back of old Squire Vandergriff's, and druv the mountains clear down here till I reached Rocky Hill; I'd pretty good sport, too, I tell you; I shot a big gray fox on Round Top, and started a raal rouser of a red one down in the big swamp, in the bottom, and them sluts did keep the darndest ragin' you ever did hear tell on. Well, they tuk him clean out across the open, past Andy Joneses, and they skeart up in his stubbles three bevies, I guess, got into one like! there was a drove of them, I tell you, and then they brought him back to the hills agin, and run him twice clean round the Rocky Hill, and when they came round the last time, the English sluts warn't half a rod from his tail no how, and so he tried his last chance, and he holed; but my! now, Mr. Aircher, by darn, you niver did see nothin' like the partridges; they kept a brushin' up and brushin' up, and treein' every little while; I guess if I seen one I seen a hundred; why, I killed seven on 'em with coarse shot up in the pines, and I daredn't shoot exceptin' at their heads. If you'd go up there now, to-morrow, and take the dogs along, I know as you'll git fifty."

"Well, if that's all your news, Jem, I won't give you much for it; and, as for going into the mountains to look after partridges, you don't catch me at it, that's all!" said Harry. "Is that all?"

"Not by a great shot!" answered Jem, grinning, "but the truth is, I know you won't believe me; but I can tell you what, you can kill a big fat buck, if you'll git up a little afore daylight!"

"A buck, Jem! a buck near here?" inquired Forester and Archer in a breath.

"I told you, boys, the critter couldn't help it; he's stuck to truth just so long, and he was forced to lie, or else he would have busted!"

"It's true, by thunder," answered Jem; "I wish I mayn't eat nor drink nother, if there's one bit of lie in it; d--n the bit, Tom! I'm in airnest, now, right down; and you knows as I wouldn't go to lie about it!"

"Well! well! where was't, Jem?"

"Why, he lies, I guess, now, in that little thickest swamp of all, jist in the eend of the swale atween Round Top and Rocky Hill, right in the pines and laurels; leastways I druv him down there with the dogs, and I swon that he never crossed into the open meadow; and I went round, and made a circle like clean round about him, and darn the dog trailed on him no how; and bein' as he's hard hot, I guess he'll stay there since he harbored."

"Hard hit, is he! why, did you get a shot at him?"

"A fair one," Jem replied; "not three rod off from me; he jumped up out of the channel of Stony Brook, where, in a sort o' bend, there was a lot of bushes, sumac and winter-green, and ferns; he skeart me, that's a fact, or I'd a killed him. He warn't ten yards off when he bounced up first, but I pulled without cocking, and when I'd got my gun fixed, he'd got off a little piece, and I'd got nauthen but fox-shot, but I hot him jist in the side of the flank; the blood flew out like winkin', and the hounds arter him like mad, up and down, and round and back, and he a kind of weak like, and they'd overhauled him once and again, and tackled him, but there was only four on them, and so he beat them off like every time, and onned again! They couldn't hold him no how, till I got up to them, and I couldn't fix it no how, so as I'd git another shot at him; but it was growin' dark fast, and I flogged off the sluts arter a deal o' work, and viewed him down the old blind run-way into th' swale eend, where I telled you; and then I laid still quite a piece; and then I circled round, to see if he'd quit it, and not one dog tuk track on him, and so I feels right sartain as he's in that hole now, and will be in the mornin', if so be we goes there in time, afore the sun's up.

"That we can do easily enough," said Archer, "what do you say, Tom? Is it worth while?"

"Why," answered old Draw instantly, "if so be only we could be sartain that the darned critter warn't lyin', there couldn't be no doubt about it; for if the buck did lay up there this night, why he'll be there to-morrow; and if so be he's there, why we can get him sure!"

"Well, Jem, what have you got to say now," said the Commodore; "is it the truth or no?"

"Why, darn it all," retorted Jem, "harn't I just told you it was true; it's most blamed hard a fellow can't be believed now--why, Mr. Aircher, did I ever lie to you?"

"Oh! if you ask me that," said Harry, "you know I must say 'Yes!'--for you have, fifty times at the least computation. Do you remember the day you towed me up the Decker's run to look for woodcock?"

"And you found nothing," interrupted Tom, "but..."

"Oh shut up, do, Tom," broke in Forester, "and let us hear about this buck. If we agree to give you a five dollar bill, Jem, in case we do find him where you say, what will you be willing to forfeit if we do not?"

"You may shoot at me!" answered Jem, "all on you--ivery one on you--at forty yards, with rifle or buckshot!"

"It certainly is very likely that we should be willing to get hanged for the sake of shooting such a mangy hound as you Jem," answered Forester, "when one could shoot a good clean dog--Tom's Dash, for example--for nothing!"

"Could you though?" Tom replied, "I'd like to catch you at it, my dear boy--I'd wax the little hide off of you. But come, let us be settling. Is it a lie now, Jem; speak out--is it a lie, consarn you? for if it be, you'd best jest say 't out now, and save your bones to-morrow. Well, boys, the critter's sulky, so most like it is true--and I guess we'll be arter him. We'll be up bright and airly, and go a horseback, and if he be there, we can kill him in no time at all, and be right back to breakfast. I'll start Jem and the captain here, and Dave Seers, with the dogs, an hour afore us! and let them come right down the swale, and drive him to the open--Harry and Forester, you two can ride your own nags, and I'll take old Roan, and A--- here shall have the colt."

"Very well! Timothy, did they feed well to-night? if they did, give them their oats very early, and no water. I know it's too bad after their work to-day, but we shall not be out two hours!"

"Weel! it's no matter gin they were oot six," responded Timothy, "they wadna be a pin the waur o't!"

"Take out my rifle, then--and pick some buckshot cartridges to fit the bore of all the double guns. Frank's got his rifle; so you can take my heavy single gun--your gauge is 17, A---, quite too small for buckshot; mine is 11, and will do its work clean with Ely's cartridge and pretty heavy powder, at eighty-five to ninety yards. Tom's bore is twelve, and I've brought some to fit his old double, and some, too, for my own gun, though it is almost too small!"

"What gauge is yours, Harry?"

"Fourteen; which I consider the very best bore possible for general shooting. I think the gunsmiths are running headlong now into the opposite of their old error--when they found that fifteens and fourteens outshot vastly the old small calibres--fifty years since no guns were larger than eighteen, and few than twenty; they are now quite out-doing it. I have seen late-imported guns of seven pounds, and not above twenty-six inches long, with eleven and even ten gauge calibres! you might as well shoot with a blunderbus at once!"