In the Midst of Alarms Part 31

"I want to borrow a kitchen chair, Kitty," he said, "so that poor Stoliker will get a rest."

They walked toward the house. Yates noticed that the firing had ceased, except a desultory shot here and there across the country.

"I shall have to retreat over the border as quickly as I can," he continued. "This country is getting too hot for me."

"You are much safer here," said the girl, with downcast eyes. "A man has brought the news that the United States gunboats are sailing up and down the river, making prisoners of all who attempt to cross from this side."

"You don't say! Well, I might have known that. Then what am I to do with Stoliker? I can't keep him tied up here. Yet the moment he gets loose I'm done for."

"Perhaps mother could persuade him not to do anything more. Shall I go for her?"

"I don't think it would be any use. Stoliker's a stubborn animal. He has suffered too much at my hands to be in a forgiving mood. We'll bring him a chair anyhow, and see the effect of kindness on him."

When the chair was placed at Stoliker's disposal, he sat down upon it, still hugging the post with an enforced fervency that, in spite of the solemnity of the occasion, nearly made Kitty laugh, and lit up her eyes with the mischievousness that had always delighted Yates.

"How long am I to be kept here?" asked the constable.

"Oh, not long," answered Yates cheerily; "not a moment longer than is necessary. I'll telegraph when I'm safe in New York State; so you won't be here more than a day or two."

This a.s.surance did not appear to bring much comfort to Stoliker.

"Look here," he said; "I guess I know as well as the next man when I'm beaten. I have been thinking all this over. I am under the sheriff's orders, and not under the orders of that officer. I don't believe you've done anything, anyhow, or you wouldn't have acted quite the way you did.

If the sheriff had sent me, it would have been different. As it is, if you unlock those cuffs, I'll give you my word I'll do nothing more unless I'm ordered to. Like as not they've forgotten all about you by this time; and there's nothing on record, anyhow."

"Do you mean it? Will you act square?"

"Certainly I'll act square. I don't suppose you doubt that. I didn't ask any favors before, and I did what I could to hold you."

"Enough said," cried Yates. "I'll risk it."

Stoliker stretched his arms wearily above his head when he was released.

"I wonder," he said, now that Kitty was gone, "if there is anything to eat in the house?"

"Shake!" cried Yates, holding out his hand to him. "Another great and mutual sentiment unites us, Stoliker. Let us go and see."

CHAPTER XVIII.

The man who wanted to see the fight did not see it, and the man who did not want to see it saw it. Yates arrived on the field of conflict when all was over; Renmark found the battle raging around him before he realized that things had reached a crisis.

When Yates reached the tent, he found it empty and torn by bullets.

The fortunes of war had smashed the jar, and the fragments were strewn before the entrance, probably by some disappointed man who had tried to sample the contents and had found nothing.

"Hang it all!" said Yates to himself, "I wonder what the five a.s.sistants that the _Argus_ sent me have done with themselves? If they are with the Fenians, beating a retreat, or, worse, if they are captured by the Canadians, they won't be able to get an account of this scrimmage through to the paper. Now, this is evidently the biggest item of the year--it's international, by George! It may involve England and the United States in a war, if both sides are not extra mild and cautious. I can't run the chance of the paper being left in the lurch. Let me think a minute. Is it my tip to follow the Canadians or the Fenians? I wonder is which is running the faster? My men are evidently with the Fenians, if they were on the ground at all. If I go after the Irish Republic, I shall run the risk of duplicating things; but if I follow the Canadians, they may put me under arrest. Then we have more Fenian sympathizers among our readers than Canadians, so the account from the invasion side of the fence will be the more popular. Yet a Canadian version would be a good thing, if I were sure the rest of the boys got in their work, and the chances are that the other papers won't have any reporters among the Canucks. Heavens! What is a man to do? I'll toss up for it. Heads, the Fenians."

He spun the coin in the air, and caught it. "Heads it is! The Fenians are my victims. I'm camping on their trail, anyhow. Besides, it's safer than following the Canadians, even though Stoliker has got my pa.s.s."

Tired as he was, he stepped briskly through the forest. The scent of a big item was in his nostrils, and it stimulated him like champagne.

What was temporary loss of sleep compared to the joy of defeating the opposition press?

A blind man might have followed the trail of the retreating army. They had thrown away, as they pa.s.sed through the woods, every article that impeded their progress. Once he came on a man lying with his face in the dead leaves. He turned him over.

"His troubles are past, poor devil," said Yates, as he pushed on.

"Halt! Throw up your hands!" came a cry from in front of him.

Yates saw no one, but he promptly threw up his hands, being an adaptable man.

"What's the trouble?" he shouted. "I'm retreating, too."

"Then retreat five steps farther. I'll count the steps. One."

Yates strode one step forward, and then saw that a man behind a tree was covering him with a gun. The next step revealed a second captor, with a huge upraised hammer, like a Hercules with his club. Both men had blackened faces, and resembled thoroughly disreputable fiends of the forest. Seated on the ground, in a semicircle, were half a dozen dejected prisoners. The man with the gun swore fearfully, but his comrade with the hammer was silent.

"Come," said the marksman, "you blank scoundrel, and take a seat with your fellow-scoundrels. If you attempt to run, blank blank you, I'll fill you full of buckshot!"

"Oh, I'm not going to run, Sandy," cried Yates, recognizing him. "Why should I? I've always enjoyed your company, and Macdonald's. How are you, Mac? Is this a little private raid of your own? For which side are you fighting? And I say, Sandy, what's the weight of that old-fashioned bar of iron you have in your hands? I'd like to decide a bet. Let me heft it, as you said in the shop."

"Oh, it's you, is it?" said Sandy in a disappointed tone, lowering his gun. "I thought we had raked in another of them. The old man and I want to make it an even dozen."

"Well, I don't think you'll capture any more. I saw n.o.body as I came through the woods. What are you going to do with this crowd?"

"Brain 'em," said Macdonald laconically, speaking for the first time.

Then he added reluctantly: "If any of 'em tries to escape."

The prisoners were all evidently too tired and despondent to make any attempt at regaining their liberty. Sandy winked over Macdonald's shoulder at Yates, and by a slight side movement of his head he seemed to indicate that he would like to have some private conversation with the newspaper man.

"I'm not your prisoner, am I?" asked Yates.

"No," said Macdonald. "You may go if you like, but not in the direction the Fenians have gone."

"I guess I won't need to go any farther, if you will give me permission to interview your prisoners. I merely want to get some points about the fight."

"That's all right," said the blacksmith, "as long as you don't try to help them. If you do, I warn you there will be trouble."

Yates followed Sandy into the depths of the forest, out of hearing of the others, leaving Macdonald and his sledge-hammer on guard.

When at a safe distance, Sandy stopped and rested his arms on his gun, in a pathfinder att.i.tude.

"Say," he began anxiously, "you haven't got some powder and shot on you by any chance?"

"Not an ounce. Haven't you any ammunition?"

"No, and haven't had all through the fight. You see, we left the shop in such a hurry we never thought about powder and ball. As soon as a man on horseback came by shouting that there was a fight on, the old man he grabbed his sledge, and I took this gun that had been left at the shop for repairs, and off we started. I'm not sure that it would shoot if I had ammunition, but I'd like to try. I've scared some of them Fee-neens nigh to death with it, but I was always afraid one of them would pull a real gun on me, and then I don't know just what I'd 'a' done."