The Mad King Part 11

The American, suspecting nothing, voiced his thanks, and set out after him who had gone before. As he pa.s.sed the fellow who waited the latter moved in behind him, so that Barney walked between the two. Occasionally the rider at his back turned in his saddle to scan the trail behind, as though still fearful that Barney had been lying to them and that he would discover a company of soldiers charging down upon them.

The trail became more and more difficult as they advanced, until Barney wondered how the little horses clung to the steep mountainside, where he himself had difficulty in walking without using his hand to keep from falling.

Twice the American attempted to break through the taciturnity of his guides, but his advances were met with nothing more than sultry grunts or silence, and presently a suspicion began to obtrude itself among his thoughts that possibly these "honest farmers" were something more sinister than they represented themselves to be.

A malign and threatening atmosphere seemed to surround them. Even the cat-like movement of their silent mounts breathed a sinister secrecy, and now, for the first time, Barney noticed the short, ugly looking carbines that were slung in boots at their saddle-horns.

Then, prompted to further investigation, he dropped back beside the man who had been riding behind him, and as he did so he saw beneath the fellow's cloak the b.u.t.ts of two villainous-looking pistols.

As Barney dropped back beside him the man turned his mount across the narrow trail, and reining him in motioned Barney ahead.

"I have changed my mind," said the American, "about going to the Old Forest."

He had determined that he might as well have the thing out now as later, and discover at once how he stood with these two, and whether or not his suspicions of them were well grounded.

The man ahead had halted at the sound of Barney's voice, and swung about in the saddle.

"What's the trouble?" he asked.

"He don't want to go to the Old Forest," explained his companion, and for the first time Barney saw one of them grin. It was not at all a pleasant grin, nor rea.s.suring.

"He don't, eh?" growled the other. "Well, he ain't goin', is he?

Who ever said he was?"

And then he, too, laughed.

"I'm going back the way I came," said Barney, starting around the horse that blocked his way.

"No, you ain't," said the horseman. "You're goin' with us."

And Barney found himself gazing down the muzzle of one of the wicked looking pistols.

For a moment he stood in silence, debating mentally the wisdom of attempting to rush the fellow, and then, with a shake of his head, he turned back up the trail between his captors.

"Yes," he said, "on second thought I have decided to go with you.

Your logic is most convincing."

VI

A KING'S RANSOM

For another mile the two brigands conducted their captor along the mountainside, then they turned into a narrow ravine near the summit of the hills--a deep, rocky, wooded ravine into whose black shadows it seemed the sun might never penetrate.

A winding path led crookedly among the pines that grew thickly in this sheltered hollow, until presently, after half an hour of rough going, they came upon a small natural clearing, rock-bound and impregnable.

As they filed from the wood Barney saw a score of villainous fellows cl.u.s.tered about a camp fire where they seemed engaged in cooking their noonday meal. Bits of meat were roasting upon iron skewers, and a great iron pot boiled vigorously at one side of the blaze.

At the sound of their approach the men sprang to their feet in alarm, and as many weapons as there were men leaped to view; but when they saw Barney's companions they returned their pistols to their holsters, and at sight of Barney they pressed forward to inspect the prisoner.

"Who have we here?" shouted a big blond giant, who affected extremely gaudy colors in his selection of wearing apparel, and whose pistols and knife had their grips heavily ornamented with pearl and silver.

"A stranger in Lutha he calls himself," replied one of Barney's captors. "But from the sword I take it he is one of old Peter's wolfhounds."

"Well, he's found the wolves at any rate," replied the giant, with a wide grin at his witticism. "And if Yellow Franz is the particular wolf you're after, my friend, why here I am," he concluded, addressing the American with a leer.

"I'm after no one," replied Barney. "I tell you I'm a stranger, and I lost my way in your infernal mountains. All I wish is to be set upon the right road to Tann, and if you will do that for me you shall be well paid for your trouble."

The giant, Yellow Franz, had come quite close to Barney and was inspecting him with an expression of considerable interest.

Presently he drew a soiled and much-folded paper from his breast.

Upon one side was a printed notice, and at the corners bits were torn away as though the paper had once been tacked upon wood, and then torn down without removing the tacks.

At sight of it Barney's heart sank. The look of the thing was all too familiar. Before the yellow one had commenced to read aloud from it Barney had repeated to himself the words he knew were coming.

"'Gray eyes,'" read the brigand, "'brown hair, and a full, reddish-brown beard.' Herman and Friedrich, my dear children, you have stumbled upon the richest haul in all Lutha. Down upon your marrow-bones, you swine, and rub your low-born noses in the dirt before your king."

The others looked their surprise.

"The king?" one cried.

"Behold!" cried Yellow Franz. "Leopold of Lutha!"

He waved a ham-like hand toward Barney.

Among the rough men was a young smooth-faced boy, and now with wide eyes he pressed forward to get a nearer view of the wonderful person of a king.

"Take a good look at him, Rudolph," cried Yellow Franz. "It is the first and will probably be the last time you will ever see a king.

Kings seldom visit the court of their fellow monarch, Yellow Franz of the Black Mountains.

"Come, my children, remove his majesty's sword, lest he fall and stick himself upon it, and then prepare the royal chamber, seeing to it that it be made so comfortable that Leopold will remain with us a long time. Rudolph, fetch food and water for his majesty, and see to it that the silver plates and the golden goblets are well scoured and polished up."

They conducted Barney to a miserable lean-to shack at one side of the clearing, and for a while the motley crew loitered about bandying coa.r.s.e jests at the expense of the "king." The boy, Rudolph, brought food and water, he alone of them all evincing the slightest respect or awe for the royalty of their unwilling guest.

After a time the men tired of the sport of king-baiting, for Barney showed neither rancor nor outraged majesty at their keenest thrusts, instead, often joining in the laugh with them at his own expense.

They thought it odd that the king should hold his dignity in so low esteem, but that he was king they never doubted, attributing his denials to a disposition to deceive them, and rob them of the "king's ransom" they had already commenced to consider as their own.

Shortly after Barney arrived at the rendezvous he saw a messenger dispatched by Yellow Franz, and from the repeated gestures toward himself that had accompanied the giant's instructions to his emissary, Barney was positive that the man's errand had to do with him.

After the men had left his prison, leaving the boy standing awkwardly in wide-eyed contemplation of his august charge, the American ventured to open a conversation with his youthful keeper.

"Aren't you rather young to be starting in the bandit business, Rudolph?" asked Barney, who had taken a fancy to the youth.

"I do not want to be a bandit, your majesty," whispered the lad; "but my father owes Yellow Franz a great sum of money, and as he could not pay the debt Yellow Franz stole me from my home and says that he will keep me until my father pays him, and that if he does not pay he will make a bandit of me, and that then some day I shall be caught and hanged until I am dead."

"Can't you escape?" asked the young man. "It would seem to me that there would be many opportunities for you to get away undetected."

"There are, but I dare not. Yellow Franz says that if I run away he will be sure to come across me some day again and that then he will kill me."