Down the Ravine | Page 9

an inarticulate mutter of mingled reproach, and warning, and anxiety. Rufe settled himself on the platform, his bare feet dangling about jocosely. Then, beating his hands on either thigh to mark the time he sang in a loud, shrill soprano, prone now and then to be flat, and yet, impartially, prone now and then to be sharp: -
Thar war two sun-dogs in the red day-dawn, An' the wind war laid--'t war prime fur game. I went ter the woods betimes that morn, An' tuk my flint-lock, "Nancy," by name; An' thar I see, in the crotch of a tree, A great big catamount grinnin' at me. A-kee! he! he! An' a-ho! ho! he! A pop-eyed catamount laffin' at me!
And, as Rufe sang, the anger and remonstrance in the owl's demeanor increased every moment. For the owl was a vocalist, too!
Bein' made game of by a brute beastis, War su'thin' I could in no ways allow. I jes' spoke up, for my dander hed riz, "Cat--take in the slack o' yer jaw!" He bowed his back--Nance sighted him gran', Then the blamed old gal jes' flashed in the pan! A-kee! he! he! An' a-ho! ho! he! With a outraged catamount rebukin' of me!
As Rufe finished this with a mighty CRESCENDO, he was obliged to pause for breath. He stared about, gaspily. The afternoon was waning. The mountains close at hand were a darker green. The distant ranges had assumed a rosy amethystine tint, like nothing earthly--like the mountains of a dream, perhaps. The buzzard had alighted in the top of a tree not far down the slope, a tree long ago lightning-scathed, but still rising, gaunt and scarred, above all the forest, and stretching dead stark arms to heaven. Somehow Rufe did not like the looks of it. He was aware of a revulsion of feeling, of the ebbing away of his merry spirit before he saw more.
As he tried to sing: -
I war the mightiest hunter that ever ye see Till that thar catamount tuk arter me! -
his tongue clove suddenly to the roof of his mouth.
He could see something under that tree which no one else could see, not even from the summit of the crags, for the tree was beyond a projecting slope, and out of the range of vision thence.
Rufe could not make out distinctly what the object was, but it was evidently foreign to the place. He possessed the universal human weakness of regarding everything with a personal application. It now seemed strange to him that he should have come here at all; stranger still, that he should have mounted this queer relic of days so long gone by, and thus discovered that peculiar object under the dead tree. He began to think he had been led here for a purpose. Now Rufe was not so good a boy as to be on the continual lookout for rewards of merit. On the contrary, the day of reckoning meant with him the day of punishment. He had heard recounted an unpleasant superstition that when the red sunsets were flaming round the western mountains, and the valleys were dark and drear, and the abysses and gorges gloomed full of witches and weird spirits, Satan himself might be descried, walking the crags, and spitting fire, and deporting himself generally in such a manner as to cause great apprehension to a small person who could remember so many sins as Rufe could. His sins! they trooped up before his mental vision now, and in a dense convocation crowded the encompassing wilderness.
Rufe felt that he must not leave this matter in uncertainty. He must know whether that strange object under the tree could be intended as a warning to him to cease in time his evil ways-- tormenting Towse, pulling Tennessee's hair, shirking the woodpile, and squandering Birt's rifle balls. He even feared this might be a notification that the hour of retribution had already come!
He scuttled off the platform, and began to swing himself from bough to bough. He was nervous and less expert than when he had climbed up the tree. He lost his grip once, and crashed from one branch to another, scratching himself handsomely in the operation. The owl, emboldened by his retreat, flew awkwardly down upon the scaffold, and perched there, its head turned askew, and its great, round eyes fixed solemnly upon him.
Suddenly a wild hoot of derision rent the air; the echoes answered, and all the ravine was filled with the jeering clamor.
"The wust luck in the worl'!" plained poor Rufe, as the ill-omened cry rose again and again. "'Tain't goin' ter s'prise me none now, ef I gits my neck bruk along o' this resky foolishness in this cur'ous place whar owELS watch from the lookout ez dead men hev lef'."
He came down