In Harry's condition, the “mile or so” seemed to be stretching out a long ways around the globe, and he began to ask himself how near he was to the much-referred-to “heart of the Southern Confederacy.”
At length a little fading toward gray of the thick blackness, to that they had emerged from the heavy woods into more open country. Harry thought they were come to fields, but he could see nothing, and without remark plodded painfully after his leader.
Suddenly a large pack of dogs immediately in front of them broke the stillness with a startling diapason, ranging from the deep bass of the mastiff to the ringing bark of the fox-hounds. Mingled with this was the sound of the whole pack rushing fiercely forward. Fortner stopped in his tracks so abruptly that Glen stumbled against him. The mountaineer gave the peculiar whistle he had uttered at the Ford. The rush ceased instantly. The deep growls of the mastiffs and bull-dogs stopped likewise; only the hounds and the shrill-voiced young dogs continued barking.
The darkness was rent by a long narrow lane of light. A door had been opened in a tightly-closed house, just beyond the dogs.
“Down, Tige! Git out, Beauty!” said Forstner, imperiously. “Lay down, Watch! Quiet Bruno!”
The clamors of the gang changed to little yelps of welcome.
“Is that you, Jim?” inquired a high-pitched but not unpleasant voice, from the door.
“Yes, Aunt Debby,” answered Fortner, “an' I hev some one with me.”
As the two approached, surrounded by the fawning dogs, a slender, erect woman appeared in the doorway, holding above her head, by its nail and chain, one of the rude iron lamps common in the houses of the South.
“Everything all right, Aunt Debby?” asked Fortner, as, after entering, he turned from firmly securing the door, by placing across it a strong wooden bar that rested in the timbers on either side.
“Yes, thank God!” she said with quiet fervor. She stepped with graceful freedom over the floor, and hung the lamp up by thrusting the nail into a crack in one of the logs forming the walls of the room. “An' how is hit with ye?” she asked, facing Fortner, with her large gray eyes eloquent with solicitude.
“O, ez fur me, I'm jes ez sound ez when I left heah last week, 'cept thet I'm tireder 'n a plow mule at night, an' hongrier nor a b'ar thet's lived all Winter by suckin' hits paws.”