A Pagan of the Hills Part 15

He crossed his legs and slouched more indolently into his chair in the att.i.tude of a bored and vacant-minded man--but as he sat his brain was focussed on the clicking.

"Am tied . . . up . . . here," spelled out the dots and dashes from the baggage-room. "If you understand, sc.r.a.pe chair on floor." Brent shifted his seat noisily.

"She . . . is . . . caught. . . ." There was a pause there.

"In G.o.d's name, how is he doing it?" Brent questioned himself, while inside, bound to his chair, with cuffed wrists, Halloway went on sending--rapping with a pipe stem between parted rows of strong teeth.

"She is held . . . in mine-shaft . . . back of Gap. . . ."

The pressure of concentrating on that faint, but infinitely important sound, and the need of maintaining a semblance of weary dullness was trying Brent's soul. He thanked Heaven for the taciturnity of his companions.

"Get there . . . with all men possible . . . as for me----"

Brent came suddenly and noisily to his feet for just then the operator appeared in the doorway and it would not do for these sounds to continue after his coming.

"Well, here comes the man I've been waiting for," he announced loudly, and once more the clatter in the baggage-room became the random of rats at play. "I wanted to ask you if you had any message for William Brent, from a man named Halloway," he inquired, still speaking as if against the wind, and, receiving a brief negative, he turned toward the outer door.

An exit under such circ.u.mstances is always difficult. To curb the urge of haste, to remain casual under lynx-like eyes, these are not untrying tasks. Any slip now and he might be in the same durance as Halloway himself--and when he breathed the outer air it was with a deep-drawn sigh of relief for delivery out of peril.

When he had established connection with O'Keefe and had given him the main facts, withholding, however, his sources of information, he said: "We must get Halloway free before we start."

"Like h.e.l.l we must!" exploded Jerry. "So long es he lays thar they'll figger they've done fooled us an' beat us. Ef we take him out, thar'll be men in ther la'rel all the way we've got ter go, pickin' us off in ther dark."

"You're right," a.s.sented Brent, "but he's been there all day, I guess."

"Wa'al then a leetle more hain't goin' ter hurt him none."

Fifteen minutes later, leaving separately but timed to come to a rendezvous near the point of attack a good dozen men were on the trail to the Gap.

Through wet and chilly thickets O'Keefe led Brent at a gait that made his heart pound. There was a battle-joy in the mountaineer's eyes and in them too, was something else inspired by certain dreams of the girl he had seen only once and whom he had told himself he meant to marry.

Over broken gulches, along precipitous paths he led the way buoyantly and now and then he broke into low almost inaudible crooning of an ancient love song.

Vainly the crew of highwaymen in the mine awaited the arrival of the seeming rescuer who was to take their captive off their hands and relieve them of the necessity of murder. It had been understood that Jase was to employ only a few attackers in the accomplishment of this knightly deed. Few men could be spared from other duties, and the smaller the force which he led to victory the more l.u.s.trous would be his glory of achievement. There was to be a great deal of shooting and shouting through the narrow entrance to the place--and the exaggerating echoes of the rocky confines would multiply it into a convincing din of battle.

The alleged Ku-Klux clansmen would fight their way out, leaving their prisoner behind--and in the confusion--but not until then--the saddle-bags would disappear.

It was all very simple, and prettily adjusted, but the difficulty was that Jase had failed to arrive and the act was lagging without its climax.

He failed because of unforeseen events. Pending the cue for his entrance he and his fellow heroes were being employed as sentries guarding the approaches to the place against invasion by outsiders.

Jase himself had for several hours been lying as flat as a lizard under a matted clump of laurel on the edge of a cliff, overlooking a ford which could not be rapidly crossed. His function was to see to it that no one pa.s.sed there whose coming might prove an embarra.s.sment.

The rawness of the air caused his bones to ache and his muscles to cramp, but he had been steadfast. He was playing for high stakes.

Finally two hors.e.m.e.n had appeared--and they were two who must not pa.s.s.

One of them was Brent and the other was Bud Sellers.

So Jase had opened fire and Bud had returned it--returned it and fled.

That left the sentinel with a result half successful and half disastrous, and made it necessary for him to make a hurried short-cut to another point past which Brent must shortly ride. There he would finish the matter of disputing the road.

Mallows drew himself out of his cramped ambuscade and started for his new point, to the completion of his business--but before he had taken many steps a sudden and violent distress a.s.sailed him. He pressed his hand to his side with a feeling of vague surprise and it came away blood-covered. He stopped and took account of his condition--and found himself shot in the chest. In the excitement of the moment he had not felt the sting, but now he was becoming rapidly and alarmingly weak.

He stumbled on, but several times he fell, and each time it was with a greater burden of effort that he regained his feet. He clamped his teeth and pressed doggedly forward, but the ranges began to swim in giddy circles and a thickening fog clouded his eyes. When he dropped down next time he did not rise again.

As night fell in the mine the temper of the men there became increasingly ugly. Some had recourse to the flasks that they carried in their pockets, and as their blood warmed into an alcoholic glow, their eyes, through the slits in their masks, began dwelling on Alexander's beauty of figure and face with a menacing and predatory greed.

Alexander McGivins was in the most actual and imminent of conceivable perils.

The girl's hands were no longer bound. When the commander of the group had realized that her imprisonment was not to terminate so shortly as had been planned he had been magnanimous to the extent of freeing her wrists, but he had granted her no further extension of freedom.

The girl had given them no satisfaction of weakening nerve, but in her heart she kept hidden a qualm as the time lengthened and a number of the men went on drinking their fiery moonshine.

The pack was growing restive, openly restive now, and after yet another council among the more important bandits, the leader came over and made an announcement.

"Ther Clan aims now ter discuss yore case amongst themselves. We air goin' ter leave four men hyar ter keep watch over ye whilst we're away--an' them four has orders ter kill ye if ye seeks ter escape."

He raised his hand above his head, and wheeling, marched out through the shaft's opening, while behind him, trailing in single file and dead silence, trooped all the henchmen save the four left on guard.

Alexander noted with a certain degree of satisfaction that the saddle-bags were not removed by those who departed.

The blazing pine torches went out with the small procession, leaving the cavern gloomily shadowed. The only light came now from two lanterns--and the girl sickened with the realization that at least one of her jailers was drunk.

As soon as the withdrawal of the chieftain brought a laxening of discipline, he lurched over toward her and, crossing the trickle of running water, bent forward, staring brazenly into her face.

Only his eyes were visible, but they were b.e.s.t.i.a.l and lecherous. After a little he thrust out a hand and stroked the white shoulder which the torn clothing had left bare. Instantly, in a transport of white-hot fury, the girl sprang sidewise and sought to drag the mask from his face. But sodden as he was, the fellow still held to his instincts of self protection. He twisted and seized her in a violent grip, pinioning her arms at her sides.

In Alexander's lithe body dwelt a strength quite equal to a fair fight and had it been a fair fight she would probably have made short work of him. Now caught unexpectedly into helplessness she still writhed and twisted, fighting with savage knee-blows until she had freed her right hand and then she struck out with no feminine uncertainty. The fellow reeled back, and Alexander followed him up with lightning speed.

She had become a fury animated by a single purpose. She meant to unmask her a.s.sailant and register his face for a future reprisal of death. The man, recognizing that at all costs he must defeat that recognition, was compelled to throw both elbows across his face and to bear without further retaliation the blows she rained upon him--all blows that were soundly effective.

The thing happened quickly and for an instant the other three stood looking on in astonishment--even, at first, with amus.e.m.e.nt. But as the fellow backed across the tiny brook he tripped and he fell sprawling and his out-thrown hand carried down and extinguished one of the lanterns from its precarious niche on a small shelf of rock.

Alexander, making most of her brief moment, leaped across the body that had gone down and recovered from its place on top of the saddle-bags the pistol that had been taken from her at the time of her capture.

The three who had so far remained non-combatants could maintain that role no longer.

"Drop thet gun," yelled one as their own weapons leaped out. But Alexander had thrown herself to the ground and at the same instant she fired a single shot--not at any one of her jailers, but at the sole remaining lantern, which was only ten feet distant.

Then as the place went black she came to her feet and plunged through the darkness to the opposite wall where she had marked a pulpit-like rock that would give her temporary shelter.

She guessed rightly that now for a while at least since she was known to be armed, there would be a hesitation in the relighting of lanterns or even in the striking of matches. That caution, in a situation which had abruptly undergone a change of complexion, went farther. There was even no sound of voices or of movement.

Alexander herself was groping warily for the rock, setting down each foot with extreme and noiseless caution. At last she gained the protection which she sought and waited. She wished she might have regained her rifle but that had not been lying within reach when she made her hurricane entrance into action.

There were remaining to her five cartridges in the revolver, and somewhere there in the inky blackness about her were four men, presumably ammunitioned without stint. Also their confederates would shortly return, bearing flambeaux--and then her little moment of advantage would end. Even if every cartridge at her command went fatally home, the supply was inadequate to cope with such numbers.

The silence hung with a suspense that was well nigh unendurable and when the filthy wings of a bat brushed her cheek again she had to bite the blood out of her lips to stifle an outcry.