Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1911-12-01
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CHAPTER VI.
Betty Sets Out for Tennessee.

rivers to their headwaters. the
headwaters had sent them forth to-
ward the foothills, where they made
their clearings and built their cabins
in the shadow of the blue wall that
for a time marked the furthest goal
of their desires. But only for time.
Crossing the mountains they found
the headwaters once more, and fol-
lowing the streams out of the hills saw
the roaring torrents become great
placid rivers.
Carrington's father had put the
mountains at his back thirty years
before. The Wautauga settlements
had furnished him wife, and some
four years later Bruce was born on
the banks of the Ohio. The senior
Darlington had appeared on horseback
as a wooer, but had walked on root as
a married man, each shift OF residence
he made having represented descent
to a lower social level. On the death
of his wife he had embarked In the
river trade with all that enthusiasm
and hope he had brought to haf
dozen other occupations, for he was
gentleman of prodigious energy.
Bruce's first memories had TO DO
with long nights when he perched be-
side his father on the cabin roof OF
their keel-boat and watched the stars,
or the blurred line Of the shore where
II Law against the sky, or the lights on
other barges and RATS drifting as they
were drifting. with their wheat and
corn and whisky to that common
market at the rivers mouth.
Sometimes they dragged their boat
back upstream. painfully, laborious-
ly: three or four months OF unremlt-
ting toll sufficed for this, when the
crew sweated at the towing ropes from
dawn until dark, that the rich planters
in Kentucky and Tennessee might
have tea and wine for their tables and
silks and laces for their womenfolK.
More often they abandoned their boat
and tramped north, armed and watch
full, since cutthroats and ROBBERS
haunted the roads, and rivermen' II
they had not drunk away their last
dollar in New Orleans, were worth
spoiling. Or, If it offered, they took
passage on some fast sailing clipper
bound for Baltimore or Philadelphia
and crossed the mountains TO the
Ohio and were within week or two
OF home.
Bruce Darlington had seen the day
of barge and raft reach its zenith. mad
= heard the first steam packets shrieK-
ing whistle which sounded the death
knell of the ancient order, though the
shifting of the trade was a slow mat
ter and the glory of the old did not
pass over to the new at once, but lin
gered still in mighty fleets of RATS
and keel-boats and in the Homeric
carousals Of some ten thousand OF the
half horse, half alligator breed that
nightly gathered in New Orleans.
Broad-horns and mudsills they were
called in derision. A strange race OF
aquatic pioneers, jeans and leather
clad, the rifle and the setting-pole
equally theirs, they came out or every
stream down which scow could De
thrust at flood-time; from tiny set
Elements far back among the hills;
from those bustling sinks of iniquity'
the river towns. But now, surely, yet
almost imperceptibly, their commerce
was slipping from them. AT all the
landings they were being elbowed by
the newcomers-men who wore brass
leather shoes instead of moccasins;
men with white hands and gold rings
on their fingers and diamonds In tnelr
shirts-men whose hair and clothing
kent the rancid smell of oil and smoke
and machinery.
After the reading of the warrant
that morning, Charley Balaam had
shown Darlington the road to the
Forks assuring him when they sep
arated that with little care and de-
cent use of his eyes it would be possi-
BILE to fetch up there and not pass
plumb through the settlement with
out knowing where he was. But car
rington had found the Forks without
difficulty. He had seen the old mill
his grandfather had built almost a
hundred years before, and In the
churchyard he had found the graves
and read the inscriptions that re-
corded the virtues of certain dead and
gone Carringtons. 1t had all seemed
very respectable link with the past.
He was on his way to Fayetteville,
lAl 90 no
and perhaps a day or two in looking
around, when the meeting with Betty
and Murrell occurred. AS Murrell dis
appeared in the direction of Balaam S,
Carrington took a spiteful kick at the
unoffending coin, and strobe off down
the Fayetteville pike. But the girls
face remained with him. 1t was
face he would like to see again. He
wondered who she was and if she lived
in the big house on the other road,
the house beyond the red gate which
Charley Balaam had told him was
called the Barony.
He was still thinking of the girl
when he ate his supper that night at
Cleggett's Tavern. Later. in the bar,
he engaged his host in idle gossip.
Mr.. Cleggett knew all about the Bar
ony and it's owner. Nat Ferris. Fer
ris was a youngish man, just married
Darlington experienced quick sink
ing of the heart A feeting sense OF
humor succeeded-had he interfered
between man and wife? But surely
if this had been the case, the girl
would not have spoken as she had.
He wound Mr.. Cleggett up with
sundry pegs of strong New England
rum He had met gentleman and
lady on the road that day; he Won
dered, as he toyed with his glass. If II
could have been the Ferrises? Mount
ed? Yes mounted. Then it was Fer
II. ond biS u.ifa-or II might have