A Sappho of Green Springs | Page 8

through the woods, and they're that high with thick bresh."
"With what?"
"Bresh," repeated the boy; "THAT,"--pointing to a few fronds of bracken growing in the shadow of the sycamore.
"Oh! underbrush?"
"Yes; I said 'bresh,'" returned the boy, doggedly. "YOU might get through, ef you war spry, but not your hoss. Where do you want to go, anyway?"
"Do you know, George," said Mr. Hamlin, lazily throwing his right leg over the horn of his saddle for greater ease and deliberation in replying, "it's very odd, but that's just what I'D like to know. Now, what would YOU, in your broad statesmanlike views of things generally, advise?"
Quite convinced of the stranger's mental unsoundness, the boy glanced again at his half-dollar, as if to make sure of its integrity, pocketed it doubtfully, and turned away.
"Where are you going?" said Hamlin, resuming his seat with the agility of a circus-rider, and spurring forward.
"To Green Springs, where I live, two miles over the ridge on the far slope,"--indicating the direction.
"Ah!" said Jack, with thoughtful gravity. "Well, kindly give my love to your sister, will you?"
"George Washington didn't have no sister," said the boy, cunningly.
"Can I have been mistaken?" said Hamlin, lifting his hand to his forehead with grieved accents. "Then it seems YOU have. Kindly give her my love."
"Which one?" asked the boy, with a swift glance of mischief. "I've got four."
"The one that's like you," returned Hamlin, with prompt exactitude. "Now, where's the 'bresh' you spoke of?"
"Keep along the edge until you come to the log-slide. Foller that, and it'll lead you into the woods. But ye won't go far, I tell ye. When you have to turn back, instead o' comin' back here, you kin take the trail that goes round the woods, and that'll bring ye out into the stage road ag'in near the post-office at the Green Springs crossin' and the new hotel. That'll be war ye'll turn up, I reckon," he added, reflectively. "Fellers that come yer gunnin' and fishin' gin'rally do," he concluded, with a half-inquisitive air.
"Ah?" said Mr. Hamlin, quietly shedding the inquiry. "Green Springs Hotel is where the stage stops, eh?"
"Yes, and at the post-office," said the boy. "She'll be along here soon," he added.
"If you mean the Santa Cruz stage," said Hamlin, "she's here already. I passed her on the ridge half an hour ago."
The boy gave a sudden start, and a quick uneasy expression passed over his face. "Go 'long with ye!" he said, with a forced smile: "it ain't her time yet."
"But I SAW her," repeated Hamlin, much amused. "Are you expecting company? Hullo! Where are you off to? Come back."
But his companion had already vanished in the thicket with the undeliberate and impulsive act of an animal. There was a momentary rustle in the alders fifty feet away, and then all was silent. The hidden brook took up its monotonous murmur, the tapping of a distant woodpecker became suddenly audible, and Mr. Hamlin was again alone.
"Wonder whether he's got parents in the stage, and has been playing truant here," he mused, lazily. "Looked as if he'd been up to some devilment, or more like as if he was primed for it. If he'd been a little older, I'd have bet he was in league with some road-agents to watch the coach. Just my luck to have him light out as I was beginning to get some talk out of him." He paused, looked at his watch, and straightened himself in his stirrups. "Four o'clock. I reckon I might as well try the woods and what that imp calls the 'bresh;' I may strike a shanty or a native by the way."
With this determination, Mr. Hamlin urged his horse along the faint trail by the brink of the watercourse which the boy had just indicated. He had no definite end in view beyond the one that had brought him the day before to that locality--his quest of the unknown poetess. His clue would have seemed to ordinary humanity the faintest. He had merely noted the provincial name of a certain plant mentioned in the poem, and learned that its habitat was limited to the southern local range; while its peculiar nomenclature was clearly of French Creole or Gulf State origin. This gave him a large though sparsely-populated area for locality, while it suggested a settlement of Louisianians or Mississippians near the Summit, of whom, through their native gambling proclivities, he was professionally cognizant. But he mainly trusted Fortune. Secure in his faith in the feminine character of that goddess, he relied a great deal on her well-known weakness for scamps of his quality.
It was not long before he came to the "slide"--a lightly-cut or shallow ditch. It descended slightly in a course that was far from straight, at times diverging to avoid the obstacles of trees