Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 22, Number 41, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 February 1901 — Hetty, or The Old Grudge. [ARTICLE]

Hetty, or The Old Grudge.

By J. H. CONNELLY.

CopyV.pl.t, 1592 a d 1898, by Robert Bon er’*Sons. [AU lights reserved.]

CHAPTER i. Notably strange formation, among the •eeoic beauties of Western Pennsylvania, is the wall-like hill locally known as the Utevfl's Backbone, which is thrown half {•cross the Raccoon Creek Valley. Though It* elevation is hardly more than five hundred feet, the abruptness with which it rises out of the meadow lands, the •traightncss and length of the lofty line As summit makes against’ the sky and (She absence of near rival eminences seaase it to seem, when viewed from the •alley, a real mountain. Its top, for a Aength of about two miles, is level and eStausht,.and„ is traversed by a road, one as the most charming drives imaginable, *nd net by any means so difficult of access as might be expected, since the slope •at the end of the hill is so gradual that (teams, drawing loaded wagons, ascend it with little difficulty. Through an alley «f tall trees it runs, their boughs arching 'srverhead and their dead leaves carpeting It. Smaller trees and shrubs fill the •spaces between their great trunks, and make a wall of foliage on either side, "through rifts in which, here and there, aglimpses are afforded of blue sky and Sleecy-white clouds drifting across it. Nowhere is the summit more than four or (Swe rods in width. -One flank of the hill is steep, but not ’•wyond a skillful and daring climber’s ■scaling. The other, however, is like a -*ttipendous wall. Denuded of its mask ■of foliage, that rocky face would be seen -scarred, seamed and wrinkled by ages ■»t passive resistance to the destroying ■ forces of nature. Rain, frost, sunshine and wind have graved deeply their traces • 'upon it. But, while the summer lasts at least, It is fresh and fair. During all the season of foliage and bloom, one looking up from the valley ean descry nothing of that time-furrow-ad face, but only its vivid mask from the • summit down to the base; where the crygi 'tal creek has undermined it and where ’ fishes, alarmed by the cattle plashing among the gravel on the farther side of pool, dart across the reflected sky and •through the inverted forest to find refuge among the never-lifting black shadows ifar beneath the rocks. All the nooks and •Gsrannies in that rugged wall are full of life. Foxes have their hiding places in the caves; birds build their nests in snfe'tj in spots accessible only to things with ■ wings; chipmunks and squirrels frolic and bark among the branches; snakes - •an themselves on exposed points of xwcks; owls blink and ponder in the deepest shadows; bees store their golden •weets secure from all despoilers; myriads of Nature’s wild children here find hemes, safe from each other and from ■ the common enemy, man. Late in the afternoon of a short autum--aaal day, John Cameron, returning homeward from hunting in the distant hills. 'Strode along the Devil’s Backbone toward the valley. A big bunch of gray squirrels upon his right shoulder showed that 3»e had had good success; but evidently ibis hunt was not yet over. He moved almost noiselessly, his rifle lay ready on Ibis left forearm, and he was keenly alert dfar any sight or sound betokening the •presence of game. To his ears came the :«igh of the forest, that is never hushed, and, through it the impudent barking of foolish squirrel that, having caught sight •f him, must needs proclaim the fact to rthe universe, instead of prudently scampering away in silence to a place of safety. The crack of John’s rifle sounding -strangely small and sharp away up there where there was nothing to echo it, put -an abrupt stop to the barking, and a lit tie gray, furry lump tumbled from the T top hickory tree to the ground, at the very brink of the precipice, and lay motionless. In the very act of stooping to spick up his game, John's keen eye caught sight of a thin, dirty-white, cotton string, tied to a little bush, close to the ground. It had been covered by leaves, and would have remained unseen, had not the squirrel's body knocked them away and exposed it.

Why should anybody have tied a string -ehere? He laid down his gun and proceeded to investigate, hauling in two or three yards of the slack of the string ■which dangled over the face of the cliff. Then it broke. ““What the mischief is at the other end of it?” muttered John to himself. He laid down, and, thrusting his body out perilously far over the edge of the precipice, tried in vain to see, among the rocks and bushes below, what held the ■other end of the string. Fifty feet below A-large hickory tree seemed to be firmly Tooted in a ledge of earth among the rocks, and one of its stjong branches was only a few feet beyond his reach. He calculated that if he could get hold of that branch he migljt; safely swing down by it to a dogwood ;tree of smaller size, ■on the ledge he wished to reach. Of if his hold gave way, or the branch broke, he would go on down to the bottom of the precipice, and probably break everything frangible in his anatomy. But if he did nqt take that risk, be could not learn what was at the other •end of the string. That settled the question of his making the attempt. Having in view a possible shot at a fox or rattlesnake when he got down there, he lowered his rifle by the string, to the ledge be purposed reaching. Then, by means ■of a long forked stick, he drew in to him the hickory branch, clutched it, swung off, and made the descent he had planned in safety. But the'elucidation of the mystery had not yet been attained. The -airing continued on, still farther down, passing through a crevice in the rock, into which it had doubtless been blown by the wind when dangling free —and he had -to make a second descent, even more perilous than the first, to reach a still lower ledge. This, too, he effected safely, having Srst sent bis gun down ahead Of him, as before, and at length he found the other end of the string. It was tied to a small but heavy parcel, rOosely wrapped in a doth that, as he unrolled it, seemed to bear blood stains. JUleran solid silver spoons and a gold

watch were in the package. Carefully wound around the watch, to protect it from dampness, was a strip of oiled silk, two feet long and three inches wide, upon which he made out the initials, “W. 5.,” scratched' as if by a pin-point. The watch was well worn, but had no marks by which it might be identified, excepting, perhaps, its number. Engraved upon the spoons, in florid, interlaced lines, was a monogram that might have been “R. B. W.” or any other possible combination of those three letters. “Mighty!” exclaimed John. “If ‘finds is keeps,’ as the boys say, it was worth while climbing down here.” Thnoting his prize in bis pocket2flnjfc seeing no sign of a fox or any other game, he casting about for means to get back to the top of the cliff. It is generally easier, in hill climbing, to ascend than to descend safely, and, knowing this, be had not until now troubled himself about how he should return; but all rules have their exceptions, and he quickly realized that this was"an exceptional case. Even if he could hare got back to the first ledge, which was doubtful, the dogwood and hickory trees would no longer serve him. He could not swing upward. A shimmer of Raccoon Creek was visible so far below him that he thought he was just about half way between it and the moon. “Consarn the string and all belonging to it, and the man who put it there" he muttered. The ledge upon which be stood was hardly ten feet long and not more than a yard in width. He sat down and cogitated. “So long as I keep still I’m safe enough; and if I yell long enough, somebody on the road \v4ll hear me and help me out of this scrape, but that may not be for two or three days, so few go by this way. When the sun goes down, it’s going to be colder than Greenland’s icy mountains up here, and if I move around in my sleep, as I’m pretty sure to do if I’m cold, I’ll fall far enough to bu’st a hole in the solid crust of the earth. It behooves me to yell.” Standing up and bracing himself for a stentorian effort, be shouted, at the top of his voice: “Hello-o-o-o-o! Hello-o-oo!” A feeble echo, that seemed to come up from the meadow, was his only answer. “Dern the man who tied that string and dern me for seven kinds of a fool!” he ejaculated, again sitting down, with his back against the rock. About once in five nlinutes, he considered, would be often enough for him to let off a shout like that. No casual wayfarer on the road could get by in the intervals without hearing it. Just in front of him, an opening among the branches enabled a view of the valley, and he thought it had never before seemed so fair, possibly because it was—for the present, at least —so impbssible of attainment. Beyond the green, low-lying meadow land on the farther side of the creek stretched broad fields, irregularly alternating golden russet stubble with the black, fat loam, upturned for winter wheat sowing. Amid the gray indefiniteness of an orchard, away across the valley, he could just make out a roof and chimneys, from which smoke curled, and knew the spot as home —home that he might, perhaps, never see again. Still farther off, the Indian summer haze deepened into an amethystine veil, in which the elevated horizon line of forest melted by exquisite gradations of tint into the evening sky.

CHAPTER 11. "Dorn all strings!” groaned John, bitterly, as he straightened himself up for another shout. But help was nearer than he imagined. His first “HeUo-o-o-o!” was responded to by a shrill, boyish treble: “Hi-i-!” from the summit of the hill, and the same voice, a moment later, inquired: “Where are you?” “Down Jiere on the face of the bluff!” “Thunder! How d’ye get there?” “No matter about that. I want to get away.” “No matter about that! Stay where you are!” “Go and get a rope and tie it about a tree for me to climb up by.” “Who was your nigger afore T took the job?" "Ain’t you Danny Mnlveil, up there?” “Maybe, and maybe not. Who are you, down there?” "John Cameron.” The boy emitted a prolonged whistle expressive of his surprise. “Gosh!” he exclaimed. “I want to see you where you can’t help yourself nor get at a feller!” In his eagerness to enjoy that spectacle he threw himself down and crawled to the edge of the cliff, carelessly dislodging. in his haste, a'shower of'loose small stones and earth that, rattling down about John’s ears, 'caused him to utter a loud, apprehensive shout of: “Hi! Look what you’re doing up there, or you’ll be down on top of me!” The boy chuckled, A brilliantly mischievous idea suggested itself to his mind —where its kind were always welcome. “Say!” he demanded. “Ain’t you mighty sorry new that you ever walloped a boy for findin’ a watermelon in your patch ?” , “Aha! Now I know it’s you, Danny. No; I ought to have given you twice as much as I did. It would have done you good. Hi, there! Stop that! You young limb of Satan, stop it!” he cried, as another shower of stones and earth, heavier than before, fell upon him. Danny rolled among the dead leaves and kicked up his heels in an ecstasy of delight. “Say!”‘he resumed! gathering another plfe of small missiles in readiness. “If a boy was to set his dog on your dog, would you larrup him like. Sam Hill for It again?” “It doesn’t make any odds to you whether I would or not. You go and

fetch a rope or, get somebody to nelp the. Hi, there! Quit that! Gol dern ye!” The freckle-faced, red-headed little imp, laughing with such abandon that his tears blinded him, was digging earth from the edge of the cliff with a stick and tumbling it down. “I’ll break your back the first time T catch you!” yelled the nugry man down below. “Oho! You will? Then I'd best break yours first, while I have the chance.” And he recklessly let fall a hatful of stones that John had no little difficulty in dodging, and which excited him to such a vocal tempest that the hearing of it filled Danny’s cup of happiness to the brim.

“I don’t suppose,” cried the thoroughly exasperated young man, “that it would be possible to kill you with a bullet, fqr you were born to be hanged; but I’m a goat if I don’t try to wing you with a snap shot, once for luck, anyway.” Danny laughed more heartily than ever at his fury, and sent down another lot of stones, some of which struck John and bruised him ' severely. Goaded to seriously attempting what he threatened, to save^ himself from being brained, young Cameron snatched up a flat stone and hastily fixed it in the fork of a small tree rising in front of the ledge upon which he stood, so that a bullet fired against it would ricochet to Where Danny was operating. Then he caught up his rifle, it and waited, saying to himself between his set teeth: “I’ll pop him the first time he chirps.” But he Waited and listened in vain for the imp’s “ehirp.” Danny, inspired by a new idea of mischief, had suddenly decamped. campering swiftly up the road, he met his sister Hetty—a tall, graceful, handsome girl—who, with, an ax ujfon her shoulder, was leisurely approaching. The lad was not at all bad-hearted. He simply wanted fun. Unfortunately, that which commends itself as fun to the mind of a vigorous lively hoy is generally Characterized as deviltry by older persons, and Danny had a widespread reputation as an incorrigible imp. But he-really meant no harm. He had a little spite against John Cameron, who had had occasion to switch him a few times—as almost every man in the township had, more or le^s—but his spite was not enough to prompt a desire to do any real injury. It demanded nothing more than the exquisite fun of scaring John and getting him wild with rage. That enjoyment achieved, Danny would cheerfully have gone a long way, if necessary, for help to rescue him. But in the. midst of "his mischief, he conceived the idea for a sprightly variation upon it: nothing less than putting his sister in his place, and diverting John’s wrathful objurgations to her innocent head, to the mutual confusion of the pair. So he ran to her, and with a good simulation of excited horror, cried:

“Oh, Hetty! John Cameron has fallen over the edge of the cliff!” “John Cameron?” exclaimed the girl, hoarsely, turning very pale and catching the boy’s shoulder to support herself. “Are you sure?” « “Yes; if you crawl to the edge and look over you may see him on a rock a good ways down.” Hetty with difficulty repressed' a feminine desire to shriek. She, was trembling, and her teeth chattered as if with cold. “Where is he? Show me!” she gasped. “Just beyond that little red oak. Watch where I pitch this stone. There!” She watched the flight of the little, ston, marking where it dropped just beyond the edge of the bill, and did not notice how Danny, behind her, hugged himself and grinned in enjoyment of the reflection that, small as the missile was, it would be* certain to keep John lively. “You can find him, easy. I’m going for help,” and the lad was off like a shot. Hetty stood hesitating, wishing to go forward, yet so filled with dread and horror that her limbs seemed to weaken and become powerless to obey her will. Of all the men in the world, must it be John Cameron to whom this dreadful thing should happen! John Cameron, so strong and handsome! John Cameron, who Would never know now how she would grieve for him! How willingly she would have offered herself to fate in his stead! Her great brown eyes, wide staring in anticipation of the horror they were to see, had no tears in them, for her tears were in her heart, swelling it to bursting, but a low moan that ended in a sob welled from her lips. Near the brink of the abyss, she dropped upon her hands and knees, and crawled forward to look over the edge. John Cameron’s keen hearing caught the rustling of her movements among the leaves, and naturally supposing the sound made by his tormentor, preliminary to another bombardment, hastily aimed at the stone in the tree and fired, exclaiming as he did so: “There! Gol dern you!” A woman’s shriek answered the report of his rifle. Then succeeded silence —only silence.

He stood as if petrified by astonishment, holding his breath to listen, while gradually a white horror overspread his face. The voice was surely a woman's. He huskily shoued: “Hello, up there! Are you hyiri?” There was no answer, not a sound of any kind but the violent beating of his own heart. The suspense quickly became unbearable. At one end of the ledge upon which he was perched grew a large tree, rooted among the roqks, but so insecurely, as it appeared, that its own weight threatened to tear it loose and precipitate it into the valley. Tts upper branches were on a level with the hill top, but several yards away from the cliff, owing to the angle at which the trunk projected. Under ordinary circumstances, John would as soon have thought of jumping down to the creek as of climbing that tree, for the enormous leverage of his weight, among those upper branches might very well prove too much for Its scant hold upon the earth to l>ear. But in his present state of anxious excitement, approaching desperation, he did not even think twice of the danger. He recognized it, but tnat was all. Up the trunk he went, almost as nimbly as a squirrel could, feeling it quiver and crafk, but caring nothing for those danger signals,, so long as he might reuch a point high enough to see what his bullet had done. His climbing was necesaarlly done with his back toward the cliff. When he felt that he had attained a suflJcient altitude, he stopped; but then a sudden dread of what he was abopt to see suddenly overpowered him. that for a minute he could not nerve himself to turn his head nad look. At length he did so, and almost fell from his perch. His worst

fears were realized. Face downward among the leaves, lay the body of a woman motionless—scant doubt, dead —killed by his bullet. Who, she, was he could not teR; but that did not matter. His deed wAs a murder, anyway; and he felt that tfce best thing he could do would be to let go all holds and drop. Better do that than be hanged. (To be continued.)