A Chilhowee Lily | Page 7

which her comfort depended.
"Oh, Lord!" she would wail as she fell back among the pillows. "I'm
a-losin' all my religion amongst these hyar rheumatics. I wish I war a
man jes' ter say 'damn 'em' once! An' come good weather I'll sca'cely be
able ter look Loralindy in the face, considering how I hector her whilst
I be in the grip o' this misery."
"Jes' pound away, Granny, ef it makes ye feel ennywise better," cried

Loralinda, furtively rubbing the weales on her arm. "It don't hurt me
wuth talkin' 'bout. Ye jes' pound away, an' welcome!"
Perhaps it was her slender, elastic strength and erect grace, with her
shining hair and ethereal calm pallor in the midst of the storm that
evoked the comparison, for Ozias Crann was suddenly reminded of the
happy similitude suggested by the letter that he had heard read and had
repeated yesterday to his cronies as he stood in the road. The place was
before him for one illumined moment--the niche in the cliff, with its
ferns and vines, the delicate stately dignity of the lilies outlined against
the intense blue of the sky.
The reminiscence struck him like a discovery. Where else could the
flower have been so naturally noticed by this man, a stranger, and
remembered as a mark in the expectation of finding it once more when
the bulb should flower again--as beside the county road? He would
have been hopelessly lost a furlong from the path.
Crann stood for a moment irresolute, then silently grasped his pickaxe
and slunk out among the mists on the porch.
He berated his slow mind as he hurried invisible through the vast
clouds in which the world seemed lost. Why should the laggard
inspiration come so late if it had come at all? Why should he, with the
clue lying half developed in his own mental impressions, have lost all
the vacant hours of the long, bright night, have given the rumor time to
pervade the mountains, and set all the idlers astir before he should
strike the decisive blow!
There, at last, was the cliff, beetling far over the mist-filled valley
below. A slant of sunshine fell on the surging vapor, and it gleamed
opalescent. There was the niche, with the lilies all a-bloom. He came
panting up the slope under the dripping trees, with a dash of wind in his
face and the odor of damp leafage and mold on the freshening air.
He struck the decisive blow with a will. The lilies shivered and fell
apart The echoes multiplied the stroke with a ringing metallic iteration.

The loiterers were indeed abroad. The sound lured them from their own
devious points of search, and a half dozen of the treasure-seekers burst
from the invisibilities of the mists as Ozias Crann's pickaxe cleaving
the mold struck upon the edge of a small japanned box hidden securely
between the rocks, a scant foot below the surface. A dangerous spot for
a struggle, the verge of a precipice, but the greed for gain is a passion
that blunts the sense of peril. The wrestling figures, heedless of the
abyss, swayed hither and thither, the precious box among them; now it
was captured by a stronger grasp, now secured anew by sheer
sleight-of-hand. More than once it dropped to the ground, and at last in
falling the lock gave way, and scattered to the wind were numberless
orderly vouchers for money already paid, inventories of fixtures, bills
for repairs, reports of departments--various details of value in settling
the accounts of the mine, and therefore to be transmitted to the main
office of the mining company at Glaston. "Ef I hed tole ye ez the
money warn't thar, ye wouldn't hev believed me," Lora-linda Byars said
drearily, when certain disappointed wights, who had sought elsewhere
and far a-field, repaired to the cabin laughing at their own plight and
upbraiding her with the paucity of the cache. "I knowed all the time
what war in that box. The man lef' it thar in the niche arter he war shot,
it bem' heavy ter tote an' not wuth much. But he brung the money with
him, an' tuk it off, bein', he said, without orders from the owners, the
miners hevin' burnt down the offices, an' bruk open the safe an'
destroyed all the papers, ceptin' that leetle box. I sewed up the man's
money myself in them feather beds what he lay on whenst he war
wagined down 'ter Colb'ry ter take the kyars. He 'lowed the compn'y
mought want them papers whenst they went into liquidation, ez he
called it, an' tole me how he hed hid 'em."
Rufe Kinnicutt wondered that she should have been so unyielding. She
did not speculate on the significance of her promise.