CHAPTER XXII THE DESERTED HOUSE

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 over the rocks, through some difficult pass, and so might the owner of the house; but the cow-shed would make it seem that domestic animals had been driven up from the valley. The western front was the boulder side of the mountain, and as unapproachable here as on their own plateau. After the most careful exploration, the remaining sides were found to be of the same character as the Cashiers valley side beyond the dividing cliff. This smaller tract of mountain-top was supported by sheer ledges which rose above the forest below. There might be some point in the wall where a man could scale it with the help of a long ladder, but it was evident that no cow had ever fed in that stall.

It was past noon now, and the soldiers sat down on a rock in the mild sunlight which poured over the dividing ledge, and talked of the strange situation.

"There have been human beings here," said Bromley; "at least two of them: the fellow who lived in that house, and the robber who looted it. Now I am not much of a detective, but it is certainly our business to find out how they got here and how they got away."

"How the robber got away," suggested Coleman; "for there is no doubt in my mind that the man who lived here was his victim."

"Yes," said Philip, "I am certain there was a murder committed here. Don't you see that if the murderer had carried off the books they would have been evidence against him sufficient to have convicted him of the crime?"

This view of Philip's was so plausible that the others adopted it. They assumed that the unfortunate victim had been shot in the open field, and buried where he fell. If the crime had been committed so long ago that the grass had found time to take root in the hard paths, it would have long since overgrown the shallow grave. Then it occurred to the soldiers, who had helped to bury the dead on more than one battle-field, that as time passes a shallow grave has a way of sinking. The murderer would have been careful not to raise a mound, and the very place of his crime should by this time be plainly marked by a long grassy hollow.

They started at once to search for the grave; but they were thirsty, not to say hungry, after their exertions of the morning, and so they went first to a spring which they had seen near the head of the path where they had climbed up. It was a large bubbling spring, and flowed under the rocks so nearly opposite to where the branch appeared on the other side that they knew it was the source of their own supply. It was not pleasant to think how easily their neighbor in his lifetime might have turned it in some other direction, thus stopping the wheels of their mill, and possibly leaving them to perish of thirst.

After they had lain down on the ground and drunk from the spring, they turned in the direction of the lonely house, flattering themselves that they were, after all, pretty clever detectives. By putting together the facts which they had now determined and proved, they had made a rather shrewd beginning at the discovery of a crime. They agreed, as they went along, that nothing further should be disturbed within or without the house until they should have unraveled the history of the foul murder. That was, they believed, the method observed by the best detectives and coroners. They might not establish their theory to-day or to-morrow, but they could go and come by the new path they had found, and sooner or later they would force the secret from the mute objects in the midst of which the crime had been committed.

As they arrived at this united and enthusiastic decision, they were approaching the house on the opposite side to that which they had passed on their first coming. The turf was so firmly rooted here that it was not easy to determine whether there had or had not been a garden on this side. A thick clump of young chestnut-trees had grown up since cultivation had been suspended, and as the three soldiers turned around these, they came suddenly upon something which exploded their fine-spun theories.

THE GRAVE OF THE OLD MAN OF THE MOUNTAIN.
THE GRAVE OF THE OLD MAN OF THE MOUNTAIN.

It was nothing less than a grave with an uncommonly high mound above it, and marked at the head by a broad slab of oak. Besides the wild-rose bush which grew out of the matted grass on the mound, there was another object which staggered the soldiers more than the grave itself. On the upper part of the headboard the following inscription was deeply cut:

HERE
REST THE BONES
OF
HEZEKIAH WALLSTOW
ABOLITIONIST
AND
APOSTLE OF TEMPERANCE
WHO DIED

Here ended the letters, which were cut with a knife, evidently by the said Hezekiah himself, with the expenditure of much time and patience. Below, the inscription was continued with black paint, half written and half printed in one ungrammatical and badly spelled sentence:

Hit was sumwhar betune
April 26 & Juin the 4,
1858.


The other object, found lying across the grave, was the skeleton of the cow, whose crumpled horns were attached to the bleached skull, and whose white ribs provided a trellis for the rose-bush. Strangest of all strange things in this mysterious affair, one horn of the skeleton was hooked over the top of the slab so as to hold the great skull reversed close against the headboard on the side opposite to the inscription. Evidently the faithful creature had died of starvation during the winter which followed the death of her master. By accident or through a singular exhibition of affection, she had lain down to die on the hard snow which was banked high above the grave, and as this melted the head of the cow had lodged in this remarkable position.

"Well," said Philip, with a sigh for his pet theory, "whoever he was and however he came here, his name was Hezekiah Wallstow, and there was no murder after all—unless a third man came to bury him."

"That's all settled," said Bromley, resignedly; "but how about the cow? Did she come here in a balloon?"

"My dear fellow," said Lieutenant Coleman, "we have not yet found how the men got here. When we learn that, it may make all the rest plain."

Without entering the house again, the soldiers made a second circuit of the field, examining carefully every foot of the cliffs. They were absolutely certain now that there was no road or path leading to this smaller plateau except that by which they themselves had come; and yet here were the bones of a full-grown cow and the ruined stall which had at some time been her winter quarters. They next examined the heaps of stalks, which were sixteen in number, and represented that many harvests; but the older ones were little more than a thin layer of decayed litter through which the grass and bushes had grown Up. There might have been many others of an earlier date, all traces of which had long since disappeared. At first it seemed strange that a cow should have starved in the deepest snow in the midst of such surroundings. On a closer examination, however, it appeared that the tops of the two larger stacks had been much torn, and the stiff stalks cropped bare of leaves. It was plain enough that the lean cow had wandered here on the hard crust of the snow and scattered the stalks as she fed. Even now these could be seen lying all about in the grass where they had lodged when the snow melted. Under one of the stacks another skull was found, the owner of which must have died before the cow, or have been killed for beef. Instead of one, two domestic animals, then, had cropped the grass and switched at the flies on this plateau which was surrounded by inaccessible cliffs. How did they come there?

By sunset the soldiers were no nearer to a solution of this difficult problem, and so they filled their two pails with antislavery books, and returned to ponder and wonder in the society of the bear and the six sad roosters.

They could sleep but little after such a day of excitement, and they were scarcely refreshed by their night's rest when they returned on the following day to the deserted house. This time they left their overcoats at home, and took with them a loaf of corn-bread for luncheon, and the pails, in which they intended to bring back more books.

They halted again before the oak slab bearing the name of Hezekiah Wallstow, apostle of temperance, etc., and crowned by the mourning skull of the cow, as if to assure themselves of the reality of what they had seen, and then they walked humbly into the house. They could think of no guiding clue to start them in the solution of the problem of the cattle, and so they weakly yielded to their curiosity about the books. Bromley cut away the thicket of hop-vines which darkened the two windows, and in the improved light they fell to examining the coarse woodcuts of runaway slaves with their small belongings tied up in a pocket-handkerchief, which headed certain advertisements in the periodicals. "The Adventures of Captain Canot" was a thick book with numerous illustrations of a distressing character. In one picture a jolly sailor with a pipe in his mouth was smilingly branding the back of an African woman, while another sailor stood by with a lantern in broad daylight. They hoped to find an account-book or a diary, but there was nothing of the sort on the shelves beyond one or two entries in pencil on a fly-leaf of the "Memoir of Rev. Elijah P. Lovejoy," acknowledging the receipt of a cask of meal or a quarter of lamb.