The Power and the Glory Part 38

They "went careful," stealing up the steps and entering with caution; but they found nothing more alarming than the four bare walls, the ash-strewn, fireless hearth, the musty smell of a long-unoccupied house.

Near the back door, at a spot where the dust was thick, Uncle Pros bent to examine a foot-print, when an exclamation from Johnnie called him through to the rear of the cabin.

"See the door!" she cried, running up the steep way toward the cave spring-house.

"Hold on, honey. Go easy," cautioned her uncle, following as fast as he could. He noted the whittling where the sapling bar that held the stout oaken door in place had been recently shaped to its present purpose.

Then a soft, rhythmic sound like a giant breathing in his sleep caught the old hunter's keen ear.

"Watch out, Johnnie," he called, catching her arm, "What's that?

Listen!"

Her fingers were almost on the bar. They could hear the soft lip-lip of the water as it welled out beneath the threshold, mingled with the tinkle and fall of the spring branch below.

Johnnie turned in her uncle's grasp and clutched him, staring down.

Something shining and dark, brave with bra.s.s and flashing lamps, stood on the rocky way beneath, and purred like a great cat in the broad sunlight of noon--Gray Stoddard's motor car! The two, clinging to each other on the steep above it, gazed half incredulous, now that they had found the thing they sought. It looked so unbelievably adequate and modern and alive standing there, drawing its perfectly measured breath; it was so eloquent of power and the work of men's hands that there seemed to yawn a gap of half a thousand years between it and the raid in which it was being made a factor. That this pet toy of the modern millionaire should be set to work out the crude vengeance of wild men in these primitive surroundings, crowded up on a little rocky path of these savage mountains, at the door of a cave spring-house--such a food-cache as a nomad Indian might have utilized, in the gray bluff against the sky-line--it took the breath with its sinister strangeness.

They turned to the barred door. The cave was a sizable opening running far back into the mountain; indeed, the end of it had never been explored, but the vestibule containing the spring was fitted with rude benches and shelves for holding pans of milk and jars of b.u.t.termilk.

As Johnnie's hand went out to the newly cut bar, her uncle once more laid a restraining grasp upon it. A dozen men might be on the other side of the oaken door, and there might be n.o.body.

"h.e.l.lo!" he called, guardedly.

No answer came; but within there was a sound of clinking, and then a shuffling movement. The panting motor spoke loud of those who had brought it there, who must be expecting to return to it very shortly.

Johnnie's nerves gave way.

"h.e.l.lo! Is there anybody inside?" she demanded fearfully.

"Who's there? Who is it?" came a m.u.f.fled hail from the cave, in a voice that sent the blood to Johnnie's heart with a sudden shock.

"Uncle Pros, we've found him!" she screamed, pushing the old man aside, and tugging at the bar which held the door in place. As she worked, there came a curious clinking sound, and then the dull impact of a heavy fall; and when she dragged the bar loose, swung the door wide and peered into the gloom, there was nothing but the silvery reach of the great spring, and beyond it a p.r.o.ne figure in russet riding-clothes.

"Uncle Pros--he's hurt! Oh, help me!" she cried.

The prostrate man struggled to turn his face to them.

"Is that you, Johnnie?" Gray Stoddard's voice asked. "No, I'm not hurt.

These things tripped me up."

The two got to him simultaneously. They found him in heavy shackles.

They noted how ankle and wrist chains had been rivetted in place.

Together they helped him up.

As they did so tears ran down Johnnie's cheeks unregarded. Pa.s.smore deeply moved, yet quiet, studied him covertly. This, then, was the man of whom Johnnie thought so much, the rich young fellow who had left his work or amus.e.m.e.nts to come and cheer a sick old man in the hospital; this was the face that was a stranger's to him, but which had leaned over his cot or sat across the checker-board from him for long hours, while they talked or played together. That face was pale now, the brown hair, "a little longer than other people wore it," tossed helplessly in Stoddard's eyes, because he scarcely could raise his shackled hands to put it right; his russet-brown clothing was torn and grimed, as though with more than one struggle, though it may have been nothing worse than such mishap as his recent fall. Yet the man's soul looked out of his eyes with the same composure, the same kindness that always were his. He was eaten by neither terror nor rage, though he was alert for every possibility of help, or of advantage.

"You, Johnnie--you!" whispered Gray, struggling to his knees with their a.s.sistance, and catching a fold of her dress in those manacled hands. "I have dreamed about you here in the dark. It is you--it is really Johnnie."

He was pale, dishevelled, with a long mark of black leaf-mould across his cheek from his recent fall; and Johnnie bent speechlessly to wipe the stain away and put back the troublesome lock. He looked up into the brave beauty of her young, tear-wet face.

"Thank G.o.d for you, Johnnie," he murmured. "I might have known I wouldn't be let to die here in the dark like a rat in a hole while Johnnie lived."

"Whar's them that brought you here? The keepers?" questioned the old man anxiously, in a hoa.r.s.e, hurried whisper.

"Dawson's gone to his dinner," returned Gray. "There were others here--came in an auto--I heard that. They've been quarrelling for more than an hour."

--"About what they'd do with you," broke in Pros. "Yes, part of 'em wants to put you out of the way, of course." He stooped, eagerly examining the shackles on Gray's ankles. "No way to git them things off without time and a file," he muttered, shaking his head.

"No," agreed Stoddard. "And I can't run much with them on. But we must get away from here as quick as we can. Dawson came in and told me after the other had gone that they had a big row, and he was standing out for me. Said he'd never give in to have me taken down and tied on the railroad track in Stryver's Gulch."

Johnnie's fair face whitened at the sinister words.

"The car!" she cried. "It's your own, Mr. Stoddard, and it's right down here. Uncle Pros, we can get him to it--I can run it--I know how." She put her shoulder under Stoddard's, catching the manacled hand in hers.

Pros laid hold on the other side, and between them they half carried the shackled captive around the spring and to the door.

"Leggo, Johnnie!" cried her uncle. "You run on down and see if that contraption will go. I can git him thar now."

Johnnie instantly loosed the arm she held, sprang through the doorway, and headlong down the bluffy steep, stones rattling about her. She leaped into the car. Would her memory serve her? Would she forget some detail that she must know? There were two levers under the steering-wheel. She advanced her spark and partly opened the throttle.

From the steady, comfortable purr which had undertoned all sounds in the tiny glen, the machine burst at once into a deep-toned roar. The narrow depression vibrated with its joyous clamour.

Suddenly, above the sound, Johnnie was aware of a distant hail, which finally resolved itself into words.

"Hi! Hoo--ee! You let that car alone, whoever you are."

She glanced over her shoulder; Pa.s.smore had got Gray to the top of the declivity, and was attempting to help him down. Both men evidently heard the challenge, but she screamed to them again and again.

"Hurry, oh hurry! They're coming--they're coming."

Stoddard had been stepping as best he could, hobbling along in the hampering leg chains, that were attached to the wrists also, and twitched on his hands with every step. His muscles responded to Johnnie's cry almost automatically, stiffening to an effort at extra speed, and he fell headlong, dragging Pros down with him. Despairingly Johnnie started to climb down from the car and go to their aid, but her uncle leaped to his feet clawing and grabbing to find a hold around Gray's waist, panting out, "Stay thar--Johnnie--I can fetch him."

With a straining heave he hoisted Gray's helpless body into his arms.

The car trembled like a great, eager monster, growling in leash.

Johnnie's agonized eyes searched first its mechanism, and then went to the descending figures, where her uncle plunged desperately down the slope, fell, struggled, rolled, but rose and came gallantly on, half dragging, half carrying Gray in his arms.

"Let that car alone!" a new voice took up the hail, a little nearer this time; and after it came the sound of a shot. High up on the mountain's brow, against the sky, Johnnie caught a glimpse of the heads and shoulders of men, with the slanting bar of a gun barrel over one.

"Oh, hurry, Uncle Pros!" she sobbed. "Let me come back and help you."

But Pa.s.smore stumbled across the remaining s.p.a.ce; mutely, with drawn face and loud, labouring breath he lifted Gray and thrust him any fashion into the tonneau, climbing blindly after.

The pursuit on the hill above broke into the open. Johnnie moved the levers as Gray had shown her how to do, and with a bound of the great machine, they were off. Stoddard, dazed, bruised, abraded, was back in the tonneau struggling up with Uncle Pros's a.s.sistance. He could not help her. She must know for herself and do the right thing. The track led through the bushes, as they had found it that morning. It was fairly good, but terribly steep. She noted that the speed lever was at neutral.

She slipped it over to the first speed; the car was already leaping down the hill at a tremendous pace; yet those yelling voices were behind, and her pushing fingers carried the lever through second to the third speed without pausing.

Under this tremendous pressure the car jumped like a nervous horse, lurched drunkenly down the short way, but reeled successfully around the turn at the bottom. Johnnie knew this was going too fast. She debated the possibility of slackening the speed a bit as they struck the highway, such as it was. Uncle Pros, yet gasping, was trying to help Gray into the seat; but with his hampering manacles and the jerking of the car, the younger man was still on his knees, when the chase burst through the bushes, scarcely more than three hundred feet behind them.

There was a hoa.r.s.e baying of men's voices; there were four of them running hard, and two carried guns. The noise of the machine, of course, prevented its occupants from distinguishing any word, but the menace of the open pursuit was apparent.

"Johnnie!" cried Gray. "Oh, this won't do! For G.o.d's sake, Mr. Pa.s.smore, help me over there. They wouldn't want to hurt her--but they're going to shoot. She--"

The old man thrust Gray down, with a hand on his shoulder.