Rancho Del Muerto and Other Stories of Adventure from «Outing» by Various Authors

“Ah, Scrib! You’re early on deck” was the grunting of the Doc. “None of the others are here yet. But I guess we’ll not have long to wait. There is surely no laggard or lunkhead in our jolly sextette. On such an occasion as a Christmas Eve hunt, with an oyster supper at stake, the resources of our whole happy hunting grounds on trial, and the pluck and prowess of six rival sports in question there should certainly be no such word as ‘funk!”’

Even as the Doc spoke Tinker dropped in. Hardly was he seated when Shy puffed his way into the little smoking room. We waited five minutes for the Judge, and had become impatient before Budge put in an appearance.

What an assortment of unique nomenclature! Gun-club designations they were, of course. In polite society “Scrib” was the village editor; “Tinker” was our general store keeper; “The Judge” was young Lawyer B – ; “Budge” was mine host of the Queen’s Arms, and the “Doc” was just the doctor – our large-hearted, clever, hard-working local M. D., the life and soul of the sport-loving community, as he was also the idol of the village and district for his skill, his unselfishness and his unvarying bonhomie.

“Budge!” exclaims the Doc. “As president of this club I fine you – ”

“I rise to a point of order!” breaks in the Judge. “This meeting is not yet duly open, and, at all events, this is a special one, and business of the regular order must be excluded. Referring to the constitution – ”

“Oh, to thunder with the constitution! Let us get off on our hunt!” And Tinker looks annihilation at the order pointer.

“Well, well, fellows,” laughs the Doc, “I shall rule partially in favor of both. I shall rule that Budge do tell us his latest joke as a penalty. Come now, prisoner, out with it and save your fine!”

“Say, boys,” begins Budge, deprecatingly, “don’t insist. I’m sorry I was late, but the fact is I was giving elaborate orders for the supper, which I know it will be just my luck to get stuck for. One of my special orders was to secure a magnificent roast and have it cooked in Ben Jonson style.”

“Ben Jonson style? How is that?” queries the Doc.

“‘O, rare Ben Jonson!’ There, Mr. President,” he adds, when the laugh ceases, “I believe that debt is squared.” We have made out our list and fixed points, ranging from chipmunk, 1, to bear, 1,000.

“You leave out quail, I notice. Now that is an omission which – ”

But the Judge is cut short on all sides.

“Out in the wild and woolly West, from whence you have but recently emigrated to civilization and refinement,” remarks the Doc, “quail are about as plentiful as hedge sparrows are here. But a quail has not been seen in this section for ten years, I’ll venture to say. No, Judge, we needn’t point on quail this time!”

“And yet,” I observe in an encouraging tone, “who knows but we may each and all happen on a covey.”

“That is extravagant. But if any man should be lucky enough to bag a brace, that I may enjoy one more good square meal of quail on toast, I’ll stand the supper.” And the Judge looked straight at Budge.

“Now that is what I would call extravagant – supper for a whole party in consideration of a dish of quail on toast. Suppose you yourself should bag the brace. But this reminds me of the man who ordered quail on toast in a Boston restaurant. He was brought in some toast. He waited a while. Presently he called the waiter and repeated the order. ‘There you are, sir!’ answered Thomas. ‘That? That is toast, of course; but where’s the quail?’ The waiter pointed to a small speck in the centre of each slice, looking like a baked fly. ‘Ah! so this dish is quail on toast, is it?’ ‘Yes, sir!’ ‘Then you just remove it and bring me turkey on toast!’”

We draw lots for choice of directions, and fix 8 p. m. sharp for reassembling to compare scores. My choice fell on a due north course, along which, seven miles distant, lay cover where I had scarcely ever failed to find at least fair sport and to take game, such as it was. And I went it alone – barring my dog.

Seven miles of hard footing it and I had only the brush of a couple of red squirrels, the wing of a chicken hawk, and the lean carcass of a small rabbit to show. I had sighted a fox far out of range, and had been taken unawares by a brace of birds which Charlie had nobly flushed and I had shockingly muffed.

The dog had followed the birds deeper into the wood, leaving me angry and uncertain what to do. Suddenly I heard his yelp of rage and disappointment give place to his business bark, and I knew my pup had a tree for me. It was a sound not to be mistaken. My dog never now plays spoof with me by tonguing a tree for hair. His business bark means partridge every time. I hurried on as the dog gave tongue more sharp and peremptory, taking a skirt to avoid a tangled piece of underbrush as I began-to approach the critical spot.

The ruins of an old shanty lay fifty yards to my left, and between them and me was a sort of cache or root cellar, the sides intact but the roof half gone.

All of a sudden there broke on my ear a sound I had not heard for many a day.

I listened, almost dumfounded. There it is again! And no mistaking it. It is the pipe of a quail!

It came from a patch of meadow not many rods off, and it set every nerve in my body a-tingling. Charlie and his partridges were out of mind instanter. I had no manner of use for them at that supreme moment.

“It’s no stray bird!” I mentally ejaculated. “Perhaps it’s a regular Kansas covey!” Heavens, what luck! The boys – the Judge – quail on toast – the laugh – the amazement – the consternation – I conjured all these things up in my excited brain in less time than it takes to tell it.

I started forward with every fibre a-tension. I was wild to get even a glimpse of the little strangers.

Suddenly – enough almost to puzzle me – the pipe was answered from the mouth of the old potato pit, and the next instant “whir-r-r-r!” rose the birds, and “bang! bang!” I gave them right and left at a range and with a calculation that left three only to join and tell the tale to the whistler in the meadow. Seven was the drop, and the birds were as plump and pretty as ever I had set eyes on. I fairly chuckled aloud in glee at the surprise I had in store for my club mates. I sat down, took a congratulatory nip, and actually toyed with the quail as a boy would with the first fruits of his initial day’s outing with his own boughten gun!

My faithful dog Charlie had during this time stuck to his birds. I could hear his angry bark growing angrier, and I could detect, as I fancied, a shade of impatience and disappointment therein. A crack at a partridge will be a change, I thought, and so I hurried in Charlie’s direction.

There he sat on a rotten stump, with eyes fixed on the brushy top of a dead pine.

I looked that top over, limb by limb, but not a sign of a feather could I detect. I made a circuit, and skinned every twig aloft in a vain endeavor to discover a roosting bird. I began to think the pup was daft, but I dismissed the reflection promptly as ungenerous and unfair to my trusty cocker. I make solemn affidavit that, though I could not note the suggestion of a partridge up that pine, my spaniel could see it as plain as a pike staff.

“I’ll climb the stump!” said I. Mirabile dictu! There, on lower limbs, one above the other and hugging the bark so close that they seemed part of it, were my missed brace!

“Bang!” and the topmost tumbles, nearly knocking his mate off as he falls.

“Bang!” and down comes No. 2.

Charlie manifests a sense of relieved anxiety and satisfaction that of itself rewards me for the perplexing search.

But a drowsiness had been creeping over me till its influence had become almost irresistible. I felt stupid and sleep-inclined.

Almost without knowing what I did I pulled out my flask, poured “just a nip” a fair portion in the cup and drank it off. The twilight was coming on and casting its sombre shadows, avant coureurs of the black winter night that was soon to envelop the scene for a brief while, till fair Luna lit up the heavens and chased Darkness to its gloomy lair.

I have an indistinct recollection of recalling lines I have read somewhere or other:

When Life’s last sun is sinking slow and sad,

How cold and dark its lengthened shadowsfall.They lie extended on the straightened pathWhose narrow close, the grave, must end itall.Oh, Life so grudging in your gifts, redeemBy one great boon the losses of the Past!Grant me a full imperishable Faith,And let the Light be with me till the last.

Then all became a blank!

“Full? I never knew him to more than taste liquor. No, no! You’re mistaken. He has either been knocked senseless by some accident or mischance, or else he has fallen in a fit.”

It was the Doc who spoke. I suddenly grew seized of consciousness to the extent of recognizing my old friend’s voice. But to indicate the fact physically was impossible. I lay in a sort of trance, with lips that would not open and hands that would not obey.

“Oh, all right, Doc! You ought to know!”

This time I caught the voice of the Judge.

“But he is in a pitiable plight. We must get to him and move him or he may perhaps perish, if he’s not gone now. Drat that dog! I don’t want to shoot him; and yet he’ll tear us if we try to lay hand on his master. But lay hand on him we must. Is it a go, Doc?”

“It’s the only alternative, Judge. I like canine fidelity; but hang me if this brute doesn’t suit too well! We’ll have to get him out of the way and succor the man. Give it to him, Judge!”

“Stop!”

By a superhuman effort, through some agency I never could account for, I managed to utter that one word in a sort of half expostulatory, half authoritative tone, or rather groan.

It broke the spell.

My eyes opened. My arms regained power. Instinctively I reached out a hand and drew my canine guardian toward me, placing a cheek against his cold, moist nose. That was enough for Charlie. The faithful brute grew wild with joy. He barked, whined, jumped, capered, pirouetted after his own stump, and, in a word, did the most tremendous despite to all my careful training in the line of reserved and dignified demeanor.

I rose to a sitting posture and finally drew myself up on my feet, gazing around me in a bewildered, uncertain sort of way.

“Hello, boys, what’s the matter?” I managed to articulate.

“Hello, and what’s the matter yourself?” replied the Doc.

“Yes, that’s precisely what we came out here to know,” put in the Judge.

“I guess – I think – yes, let me see! – I believe I – I – must have dropped off in a little doze, boys! Very kind of you to look me up. Only – say, you never surely meant to shoot my dog? I’d have haunted both of you to your respective dying days if you had, supposing I was a cold corpse instead of a man taking a little nap.”

“Taking a little nap! Hear him! I should rather say you were. But, look here, Scrib, do your little naps always mean two or three hours of the soundest sleep a man ever slept who wasn’t dead or drugged?”

“Dead or drugged, Doc? Pshaw, you’re away off. You can see for yourself I am not dead, and I can vow I wasn’t drugged.”

“Then you’ve been intoxicated, by George; and as president of the Blank-ville Gun Club I’ll fine you – ”

“Quail, as I live!”

“One – two – three; three brace and a half, Doc, and beauties, too! It does my heart good to handle the darlings. Doc, if Scrib has been full forty times to-day, he has more than atoned for the lapsi with this glorious bag. Whoop! Ya, ha! There’ll be quail on toast for the whole party.”

By the time the Judge’s jubilation had ceased I had about regained my normal condition and we were ready to make tracks homeward.

The clock strikes the midnight hour as I re-enter my own home. My wife sits rocking the cradle, in which lies our darling Ted. She turns a weary-looking, tear-stained face to me.

“Its all right, dear,” I gently remark, “I’m quite safe, as you see.”

“I haven’t the slightest doubt of it, sir,” she returns, icily. “It’s not of you I’ve been thinking, but of baby.”

“Baby,” I repeat inquiringly. “What is the matter with him?”

“There is nothing the matter with him, but there is no telling what might have been. And all owing to your foolish indulgence of his fancy for bottles.”

“What does it mean, dear?” I venture. “It means that you had not been gone an hour when I found Ted with that little two-ounce phial you left half filled with laudanum on the lower pantry shelf yesterday. He had evidently climbed a chair and reached it down. The cork was out and the bottle was empty. You can perhaps imagine my feelings. I didn’t know whether he had taken the stuff or not, but was in an agony of anxiety on the point, you may be sure. The doctor was away hunting, you were away hunting, and here was I fairly consumed with apprehension lest my baby had poisoned himself.”

Like a flash the whole mystery of my stupor sleep revealed itself to me. “Baby barlo” – flask – laudanum phial – whiskey – it was all as clear as day.

I said: “But it transpires he hadn’t taken any of the laudanum, eh?”

“Yes, thank Heaven! But for all of you – ”

“Listen, please. All I want to say is that what Ted missed I got. Do you understand?”

“Do I understand! Are you in your sane and sober senses, William?”

“I have a shrewd suspicion that I am,” I replied, with a slight laugh, “and being so, I will repeat it: Baby didn’t down the poison; but I guess I made up for that, because I did!”

Then I told her the story.

Of course I gained my point. It ended with – but, no matter. The Judge stood the supper in consideration of quail on toast being incorporated in the menu, and we sat around the festive board in the Queen’s Arms a week later, and talked over our Xmas Eve hunting match. No one was disposed to question the sentiment in a speech by the Doc, who declared: “Fellows, our prowess as a gun club is growing, and I verily believe the old district is getting to be once more something like a half-decent hunting ground. Let us keep together, be as men and brothers always, and – I was nearly overlooking it – let us invariably wash out our pocket pistols before filling ‘em up afresh.”

HERNE THE HUNTER, By William Perry Brown

Herne the Hunter was tall, brown and grizzled. The extreme roundness of his shoulders indicated strength rather than infirmity, while the severing of his great neck at a blow would have made a feudal executioner famous in his craft. An imaginative man might have divined something comely beneath the complex conjunction of lines and ridges that made up his features, but it would have been more by suggestion, however, than by any actual resemblance to beauty traceable thereon. The imprint of strength, severity and endurance was intensified by an open contempt of appearance; only to a subtle second-sight was revealed aught nobler, sweeter and sadder, like faint stars twinkling behind filmy clouds.

Some town-bred Nimrod, with a misty Shakespearean memory, had added to his former patronymic of “Old Herne” that of Windsor’s ghostly visitor. The mountaineers saw the fitness of the title, and “Herne the Hunter” became widely current.

His place of abode was as ambiguous as his history, being somewhere beyond the “Dismal,” amid the upper caves and gorges of the Nantahalah. The Dismal was a weird, wild region of brake and laurel, walled in by lonely mountains, with a gruesome outlet between two great cliffs, that nearly met in mid-air hundreds of feet over a sepulchral Canyon, boulder-strewn, and thrashed by a sullen torrent, that led from a dolorous labyrinth, gloomy at midday, and at night resonant with fierce voices and sad sighings.

Far down in Whippoorwill Cove, the mountaineers told savage tales of adventure about the outskirts of the Dismal, yet, beyond trapping round the edges or driving for deer, it was to a great extent a terra incognita to all, unless Herne the Hunter was excepted.

“The devil air in the man, ‘nd hopes him out’n places no hones’ soul keers to pester hisse’f long of.”

This was common opinion, though a few averred that “Old Herne ‘nd the devil wern’t so master thick atter all.” Said one: “Why, the dinged old fool totes his Bible eroun’ ez riglar ez he do his huntin’-shirt. Onct when the parson wuz holdin’ the big August meetin’ down ter Ebeneezer Meetin’-house, he stepped in. The meetin’ was a gittin’ ez cold ez hen’s feet, ‘nd everybody a lookin’ at Herne the Hunter, when down he draps onto his knees, ‘nd holdin’ on by his rifle he ‘gun ter pray like a house afire. Wal, he prayed ‘nd he prayed, ‘twel the people, arter thur skeer wuz over, ‘gun ter pray ‘nd shout too, ‘nd fust they all knowed, the front bench wuz plum full of mou’ners. Wal, they hed a hog-killin’ time fur a while, ‘nd all sot on by Herne the Hunter, but when they quieted down ‘nd begun ter luk fer him – by jing! – he wern’t thar. Nobody hed seed him get erway, ‘nd that set ‘em ter thinkin’, ‘nd the yupshot wuz they hed the bes’ meetin’ old Ebeneezer hed seed in many a year.”

Once a belated hunter discovered, when the fog came down, that he was lost amid the upper gorges of the Nantahalahs. While searching for some cranny wherein to pass the night, he heard a voice seemingly in mid-air before him, far out over an abyss of seething vapor which he feared concealed a portion of the dreaded Dismal. Memories of Herne the Hunter crowded upon him, and he strove to retrace his steps, but fell into a trail that led him to a cave which seemed to bar his further way. The voice came nearer; his blood chilled as he distinguished imprecations, prayers and entreaties chaotically mingled, and all the while approaching him. He fled into the cave, and peering thence, beheld a shadowy form loom through the mist, gesticulating as it came.

A whiff blew aside shreds of the fog, and he saw Herne the Hunter on the verge of a dizzy cliff, shaking his long rifle, his hair disheveled, his eyes dry and fiery, and his huge frame convulsed by the emotions that dominated him. The very fury and pathos of his passion were terrifying, and the watcher shrank back as old Herne, suddenly dropping his rifle, clutched at the empty air, then paused dejectedly.

“Always thus!” he said, in a tone of deep melancholy. “Divine in form – transfigured – beautiful – oh, so beautiful! – yet ever with the same accursed face. I have prayed over these visitations. I, have sought in God’s word that confirmation of my hope which should yet save me from despair; but, when rising from my supplications, the blest vision confronts me – the curse is ever there – thwarting its loveliness – reminding me of what was, but will never be again.”

He drew a tattered Bible from his bosom and searched it intently. He was a sight at once forbidding and piteous, as he stood with wind-fluttered garments, his foot upon the edge of a frightful precipice, his head bent over the book as though devouring with his eyes some sacred antidote against the potency of his sorrow. Then he looked up, and the Bible fell from his hands. His eyes became fixed; he again clutched at the air, then fell back with a despairing gesture, averting his face the while.

“Out of my sight!” he cried. “Your eyes are lightning, and your smile is death. I will have no more of you – no more! And yet – O God! O God! – what dare I – what can I do without you?”

He staggered back and made directly for the cavern. The watcher shrank back, while Herne the Hunter brushed blindly by, leaving Bible and rifle on the rock without. Then the wanderer, slipping out, fled down the narrow trail as though there were less peril from the dizzy cliffs around than in the society of the strange man whose fancies peopled these solitudes with such soul-harrowing phantoms.

Thus for years Herne the Hunter had been a mystery, a fear, and a fascination to the mountaineers; recoiling from men, abhorring women, rebuffing curiosity, yet’ at times strangely tender, sad, and ever morbidly religious. He clung to his Bible as his last earthly refuge from his darker self, and to the aspirations it engendered as a bane to the fatalistic stirrings within him.

He was a mighty hunter and lived upon the proceeds of his skill. Once or twice a year he would appear at some mountain store, fling down a package of skins, and demand its worth in powder and lead. The jean-clad loungers would regard him askance, few venturing to idly speak with him, and none repeating the experiment. His mien daunted the boldest. If women were there he would stand aloof until they left; on meeting them in the road he would sternly avert his eyes as though from a distasteful presence. One day the wife of a storekeeper, waiting on him in her husband’s absence, ventured to say, while wrapping up his purchases:

“I’ve all’ays wonnered, Mr. Herne, what makes ye wanter git outen the wimmen folks’ way? Mos’ men likes ter have ‘em eroun’.”

Herne the Hunter frowned heavily, but made no reply.

“I’m shore, if ye had a good wife long with ye way up thar whur ye live, she’d make ye a leetle more like a man ‘nd less like a – a – ” she hesitated over a term which might censure yet not give offense.

“Like a beast you would say.” He exclaimed then with vehemence: “Were the necks of all women in one, and had I my hands on it, I’d strangle them all, though hell were their portion thereafter.”

He made a gesture as of throttling a giant, snatched his bundle from the woman’s hand and took himself off up the road with long strides.

That night was a stormy one. Herne the Hunter was covering the last ten miles between him and the Dismal in a pelting rain. The incident at the store, trivial as it was, had set his blood aflame. He prayed and fought against himself, oblivious of the elements and the darkness, sheltering his powder beneath his shirt of skins where his Bible lay secure. In his ears was the roar of wind and the groans of the tortured forest. Dark ravines yawned beside him, out of which the wolf howled and the mountain owl laughed; and once came a scream like a child, yet stronger and more prolonged. He knew the panther’s voice, yet he heeded nothing.

At last another cry, unmistakably human, rose nearer by. Then he paused, like a hound over a fresher scent, until it was repeated. He made his way around a shoulder of the mountain, and aided by the gray light of a cloud-hidden moon, approached the figures of a woman, a boy and a horse, all three dripping and motionless.

“Thank God! we will not die here, after all,” exclaimed the female, as Herne the Hunter grimly regarded them. “Oh, sir, we have missed the way. This boy was guiding me to the survey camp of Captain Renfro, my husband, on the upper Swananoa. He has sprained his foot, and we have been lost for hours. Can you take us to a place of shelter? I will pay you well – ”

“I hear a voice from the pit,” said Herne, fiercely. “It is the way with your sex. You think, though you sink the world, that with money you can scale Heaven. Stay here – rot – starve – perish – what care I!”

After this amazing outburst he turned away, but her terror of the night overbore her fear of this strange repulse, and she grasped his arm. He shook himself free, though the thrill accompanying her clasp staggered him. For years no woman’s hand had touched him; but at this rebuff she sank down, crying brokenly:

“What shall I do? I should not have started. They warned me below, but I thought the boy knew the way. Oh, sir! if you have a heart, do not leave us here.”

“A heart!” he cried. “What’s that? A piece of flesh that breeds endless woes in bosoms such as yours. All men’s should be of stone – as mine is now!” He paused, then said abruptly: “Up with you and follow me. I neither pity nor sympathize; but for the sake of her who bore me, I will give you such shelter as I have.”

He picked up the boy, who, knowing him, had sat stupefied with fear, and bade the woman follow him.

“But the horse?” she said, hesitating.

“Leave it,” he replied. “The brute is the best among you, but whither we go no horse may follow.”

He turned, taking up the boy in his arms, and she dumbly followed him, trembling, faint, yet nerved by her fears to unusual exertion. So rapid was his gait, encumbered though he was, that she kept him in view with difficulty. Through the gloom she could divine the perils that environed their ever upward way. The grinding of stricken trees, the brawl of swollen waters harrowed her nerves not less than the partial gleams of unmeasured heights and depths revealed by the lightning. A sense of helplessness exaggerated these terrors among the unknown possibilities surrounding her.