THE BUSHWHACKERS _&_ OTHER STORIES THE Bushwhackers & Other Stories BY CHARLES EGBERT CRADDOCK AUTHOR OF “IN THE TENNESSEE MOUNTAINS,” “THE STORY OF OLD FORT LOUDON,” ETC. [Illustration: Logo] HERBERT S. STONE & COMPANY CHICAGO & NEW YORK MDCCCXCIX COPYRIGHT 1899 BY HERBERT S. STONE & CO. THIRD IMPRESSION CONTENTS PAGE THE BUSHWHACKERS 3 THE PANTHER OF JOLTON’S RIDGE 119 THE EXPLOIT OF CHOOLAH, THE CHICKASAW 217 THE BUSHWHACKERS CHAPTER I One might have imagined that there was some enchantment in the spot which drew hither daily the young mountaineer’s steps. No visible lure it showed. No prosaic reasonable errand he seemed to have. But always at some hour between the early springtide sunrise and the late vernal sunset Hilary Knox climbed the craggy, almost inaccessible steeps to this rocky promontory, that jutted out in a single sharp peak, not only beetling far over the sea of foliage in the wooded valley below, but rising high above the dense forests of the slope of the mountain, from the summit of which it projected. Here he would stand, shading his eyes with his hand, and gaze far and near over the great landscape. At first he seemed breathless with eager expectation; then earnestly searching lest there should be aught overlooked; at last dully, wistfully dwelling on the scene in the full realization of the pangs of disappointment for the absence of something he fain would see. Always he waited as long as he could, as if the chance of any moment might conjure into the landscape, brilliant with the vivid growths and tender grace of the spring, that for which he looked in vain. A wind would come up the gorge and flutter about him, as he stood poised on the upward slant of the rock, the loftiest point of the mountain. If it were a young and frisky zephyr, but lately loosed from the cave of Æolus, which surely must be situated near at hand--on the opposite spur perhaps, so windy was the ravine, so tumultuous the continual coming and going of the currents of the air,--he must needs risk his balance on the pinnacle of the crag to hold on to his hat. And sometimes the frolicsome breeze like other gay young sprites would not have done with playing tag, and when he thought himself safe and lowered his hand to shade his eyes, again the wind would twitch it by the brim and scurry away down the ravine, making all the trees ripple with murmurous laughter as it sped to the valley, while Hilary would gasp and plunge forward and once more clutch his hat, then again look out to descry perchance what he so ardently longed to see in the distance. Some pleasant vision he surely must have expected--something charming to the senses or promissory of weal or happiness it must have been; for his cheek flushed scarlet and his pulses beat fast at the very thought.