A Pagan of the Hills Part 13

"By compact with Satan."

"Number Thirteen, how is sich-like compacts made?"

"Thar's ways an' ways. A body kin go up ter a mounting top fer nine nights an' shoot through a kerchief at ther moon, cussin' ther Almighty each separate time, an' ownin' Satan fer master."

"Number Thirteen, what powers does Satan give these hyar sarvants of his'n?"

"They gains ther baleful power ter kill folks with witch b.a.l.l.s, rolled tight outen ther hair of a cow or a varmint. By runnin' a hand over a rifle gun they kin make hit shoot crooked. They kin spell a houn' dog so thet he back-tracks 'stid of trailin' for'ards. They kin bring on all manner of pestilence an' make cows go dry an' hosses fling their riders. They kin----"

"Thet's enough, Number Thirteen," announced the spokesman. "Thet's a lavish of evil. How kin they be hindered from this deviltry?"

"Thar's means of liftin' spells, but nothin' save death hitself cures ther witches."

"Number Thirteen, how does ye go about hit, ter slay a witch?"

"By shootin' with a silver bullet run outen a mould thet's done been rubbed with willow-sprigs."

"Number Thirteen, in the event of need, hev ye got sich a bullet hyar?"

"Each one of us hes got one."

Once more the apparent head of the clan turned to the girl. "Woman, air ye guilty or not guilty?"

"I reckon," suggested Alexander coolly, "ye'd better ask Number Thirteen. He 'pears ter know 'most everything."

But the spokesman declined to be lured by frivolous taunt from his vantage ground of solemnity. He turned his head and gravely inquired: "Number Thirteen, how does ye det'armine ther guilt of a witch?"

"Ef a preacher comes nigh, she kain't help turnin' her back."

"I reckon we hain't skeercely got no preacher handy ter test her with,"

interrupted the master of ceremonies drily, and the other went on.

"Ef she stays hyar 'twell midnight a sperit in ther guise of a black cat'll appear ter do her biddin'."

On the ground lay the saddle-bags and the rifle; as yet unmolested.

Before they had loosened the blindfold from her eyes she had been subjected to the needless indignity of bound wrists and now she was entirely helpless.

Her coat hung on her tattered during the struggle and her flannel shirt had been rent until both garments sagged from her shoulders, leaving bare the white curves of their flesh. The circle had fallen silent again. It remained silent for a half hour, then the man who had acted as chief inquisitor drew aside that other whom Alexander knew only as Number Thirteen, and, apart, they conferred in lowered voices. In the manner of these two, the captive recognized indications of anxiety.

Palpably some detail of their plans had gone awry and that miscarriage, whatever its nature, was troubling their peace of mind. Had she understood more fully it would likewise have troubled her.

The conventional and successful course of highway robbery runs in the channel of a swift accomplishment and a rapid getaway. Yet this crew, leaving the saddle-bags uninvestigated at their feet, were solemnly playing out their farce at the expense of valuable time--time which should have stood for miles put between themselves and pursuit.

Was the difficulty that of disposing of her? If so, she stood face to face with a stark and grim extremity. Murder and concealment of a lifeless body, here, would be easy enough. These men were desperadoes, and if dire enough need pressed them they would not, she thought, balk overlong at the idea of killing a woman.

Yet the leader, studiously maintaining his Ku-Klux masquerade, parleyed with his underlings and consulted a heavy nickel-cased watch. His gesture showed a petulant impatience. The men in the silent circle stirred uneasily and from time to time low growls broke from their m.u.f.fled lips. Obviously they were awaiting some development which though overdue had not materialized.

The half hour became an hour, then doubled itself to a full two--in oppressive silence.

"What be ye awaitin' fer?" Alexander demanded in a taunting voice, though inwardly she felt that the peril was pregnant and immediate.

The only satisfaction she could deny them now was that of any confessed fear.

This time the speaker snarled his answer back at her angrily, without any consistent attempt at holding the ritualistic impressiveness of manner.

"Mebby we're waitin' fer midnight--twell ther black cat comes."

Alexander could not guess that all these malefactors were on tenterhooks of misgiving because the arrangement entered into as a concession to the vanity of Jase Mallows had failed; the fict.i.tious rescue which was to re-establish him in the eyes of the girl and give to them the chance to practice highway robbery, still stopping short of murder. The whole scheme had been cut to that pattern and it was now too late to evolve a new strategy. The trial was to have seemed genuine. It was to have been followed by a fict.i.tious battle in which the alleged regulators were to have been put to flight by the victorious entry of Jase himself with his underlings. The girl, s.n.a.t.c.hed from the jaws of death by his valor would henceforth rest under such obligations as could be recompensed only by her favor--but in the melee, her money would disappear.

Jase had not come--and the captive whom he was to take off their hands must either be done to death or liberated with a wagging tongue.

Eventually the masked head-highwayman led two of his men aside. He recognized that having compacted with Jase they could not ignore him.

In a whisper he ventured the suggestion, "Mebby Jase hes done come ter grief. Mebby we'd better kill ther gal atter all an' git away. But if we does we've got ter git Jase afore he has time ter blab an' hang us all."

Halloway spending a long and dreary day bound to his chair in the baggage-room at Viper had succeeded in wriggling his lips free of the bandage. As yet that was only an academic victory. Unless there stood in the room where the instrument ticked a sufficiently strong force of his friends to wage a successful battle, any sound from his lips would mean only death for them and himself--without material advantage to his cause.

Twice during his long inactivity the raucous sound of a telephone bell jangled and he heard a voice replying to some inquiry, "No, he hain't been here." The question so answered, he guessed, had come from Brent seeking to locate him and confer with him as he came along the road between Coal City and Viper. He thought very grimly and with bitter futility of the force waiting so near and so eagerly keyed to action under O'Keefe, which one minute of private speech would launch into a hurricane effectiveness. In mad moments he had even tried to break the chain between the steel bracelets that bit into his wrists. His Samson strength had strained until the arteries swelled in his temples and it has been almost enough--but not quite. A link had stretched a bit, but the wrists had been so lacerated that the effort had to be abandoned.

Then when the day was spent towards late afternoon he caught the chatter of the key again, somewhat confused by the intervening wall, but though he missed part of the message he caught a few words which were pregnant with meaning . . . "got her . . . in mine shaft . . .

back of Gap."

Now, Halloway told himself, as tortured sweat of suspense dripped down his face, he must somehow convey word to Jerry O'Keefe--but how? He had the facts--the location--the certainty and he could use none of his vital information.

He twisted his two gyved hands around and got one of them into his coat pocket. He brought out the pipe which he could neither fill nor light, but there was a certain steadying comfort in feeling its cool stem between his teeth.

During the captive's leisure for reflection he had been pondering one point which had puzzled him. From what telegraph office out there in the wilds was Wicks acting as intelligence bureau? Obviously he must be near the Gap itself as the station wire followed the railroad.

Then he remembered a device that he had seen used about mining properties and laughed at his own stupidity in remaining as long baffled. The few telephones hereabouts were party lines where all conversation could be overheard and so, for the use of highwaymen, they were unavailable. Wicks had merely brought a key, a battery and a ground wire with him and he had cut in on a telephone line. There were, he remembered now, two instruments on the operator's table here.

One was the twin to the thing upon which the resourceful Wricks was playing.

Brent and Bud Sellers had ridden with spirits rapidly sinking since they had drawn near to that territory which lay adjacent to Wolf-Pen Gap. The failure to reach Halloway by 'phone at Viper was a bad augury, since it left them in the position of an army whose intelligence bureau has collapsed.

The two hors.e.m.e.n had ridden through wintry forests along steep and difficult roads where it seemed that they alone represented humanity.

Of course Alexander, herself, might be traveling as uneventfully as themselves, but they could feel no great confidence in that hope and now there was nothing to do but to push on to Viper, perhaps pa.s.sing by spots where they were sorely needed, as they went, and to try to find Halloway, whose silence left them groping in the dark.

Will Brent was, in the sense of present requirements, no woodsman. He knew the forests as a lumber expert knows them, but the seemingly trivial and minute indications that another might have read, carried for him no meaning.

However, he put his dependence in Bud Sellers whose knowledge of such lore amounted to wizardry, and at one point Bud halted abruptly gazing down with absorbtion from his saddle.

"Right hyar," he said shortly, "Alexander stopped an' hed speech with two hors.e.m.e.n. Ther looks of hit don't pleasure me none nuther."

"Why?" inquired Brent, and the mountaineer drew his brow into an apprehensive furrow. "Fer a spell back, I've been watchin' these signs with forebodin's. Alexander wasn't ridin' at no stiddy gait. She'd walk her mule, then gallop him--then she'd pull down an' halt. These other two riders did jest what she did--kain't ye read ther story writ out in ther marks of them mule-irons on ther mud?"

Brent shook his head in bewilderment.

"Well, hit's all too d.a.m.n plain an' hit would 'pear ter signify that Alexander sought ter shake off two fellers thet didn't low ter be shook off. Right hyar they all stopped, an' parleyed some."

"Why?"