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They reached Poteet's one afternoon, creating a great stir among the dogs and geese that were sunning themselves outside the yard. Sis had evidently seen them coming, and was in a measure prepared; but she blushed painfully when Woodward took her hand, and she ran into her father's arms with a little hysterical sob.
The law what's good enough fer pore little Ab Bonner is good enough fer the men what shot 'im." They rode on until they came to Poteet's house. "We'll thes go in an' git a snack," said Teague, "an' airter that your best gait is a gallop." But Woodward declined. He was dazed as well as humiliated, and he had no desire to face Sis Poteet.
Teague Poteet gave the signal "Come, Cap," he said to Woodward, "yess be a-traipsiu'. Puss'll be a-puttin' on biskits for supper before we git thar if we don't push on. Be good to yourse'f, boys, an' don't raise no fracas." Poteet and Woodward rode off together. That afternoon, half a mile from Poteet's, they met a woman running in the road, crying and wringing her hands wildly.
Another mountaineer, seeing the rockets and hearing the sound of the cannon, came down to Poteet's for information. He leaned over the brush-fence. "What's up, Teague?" "Gal-baby; reg'lar surbinder." "Shoo! won't my ole 'oman holler! What's up down yan?" "Them dad-blasted Restercrats a secedin' out'n the United States." "They say theyer airter savin' of the'r niggers," said the man at the fence.
No conscientious historian can afford to ignore a coincidence, and it so happened that upon the very day that league Poteet's wife presented him with the puzzle of a daughter, Fate presented his countrymen with the problem of war. That night, sitting in the door of his house and smoking his pipe, Teague witnessed other developments of the coincidence.
Poteet's straggling little garden lifted up golden candlestick heads to be decapitated at an early hour and transported in tight little bunches in dirty little fists to those of the neighbors whose spring flowers had failed to open at such an early date.
Uncle Jake leaped from his horse, and, telling the frightened yoxing men to look after Woodward, ran up the mountain-side a quarter of a mile, placed his hands to his mouth, and hallooed three times in rapid succession. Then he heard Poteet's dogs bark, and he hallooed again. This time he was answered from above, and he turned and ran back to where he left Woodward.
He came out with a horn an exaggerated trumpet made of tin, and with this to his lips he repeated to the waiting breeze, and to the echoes that were glad to be aroused, the news that had come from Poteet's.
As the young man rode down the mountain, leaving the fiddle and the dancers to carry the frolic into the grey dawn, he pictured to himself the results of the raid that he would be expected to lead against Hog Mountain the rush upon Poteet's, the shooting of the old Moonshiner, and the spectacle of the daughter wringing her hands and weeping wildly.
He had the air of a man accustomed to being called up in the early hours of the morning to go forth on mysterious expeditions. A bright fire was blazing in Poteet's kitchen, and the light, streaming through the wide doorway, illuminated the tops of the trees on the edge of the clearing.
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