_ CHAPTER XII
Time had hung heavy on Jack Halloway's hands after he had heard Brent announce his departure. The chair scraped on the floor, had been his only assurance that the other had understood him and that might, within possibility, have been a coincidence. Still Brent's promptness in cutting him off on the arrival of the operator had seemed a hopeful sign indicating team-work.
Halloway had declared himself a man who took joy in the savage strain which that civilization had failed to quench out of his nature. Now that strain was mounting into volcano stirrings presaging an eruption. If he could free himself there would ensue a tempest of wreckage about that railroad station such as Samson brought down between the pillars of the temple--but no chances had been taken in his binding.
He did not relish the thought of being left there over night, yet he strongly doubted whether they would venture to take him out on the streets in the sight of possible friends.
He fell to wondering what they would do with him. Except in extremity, they would hardly murder him out of hand, and yet to explain to him why they had treated him so hardly, would be a delicate matter. But the answer lay in the operator's total freedom from suspicion that his captive had read the wire. So far as that backwoods Machiavelli divined, there was no link establishing himself with the conspiracy to rob, and when the time came he thought he could clear his skirts by a simple means.
Night had fallen when at last the prisoner heard the door open and saw the Agent enter, accompanied by the two gunmen who had been his companions that morning. They came with a lantern and the telegraph man held a heavy rasp in his hand. Halting before the bound figure, he spoke slowly and with a somewhat shamefaced note of apology.
"I reckon I've got ter pray yore forgiveness, Stranger," he began. "A right mean sort of mistake 'pears ter hev took place--but hit war one I couldn't help without I defied ther law."
"How's thet?" demanded Halloway shortly, and his informant went on.
"When thet message come from ther town marshal at Coal City, he warned us 'Violent man--take no chances.' Thet's why we fell on ye so severe an' tied ye up so tight."
"Wa'al," Halloway was schooling his demeanor warily into the middle course between a too ready forgiveness and a too bellicose resentment, "wa'al what air ye cravin' my pardon fer, then?"
"We've done heered ergin from Coal City--an' ther town marshal says thet hit war all a fool mistake--thar hain't no sufficient grounds ter hold ye on. He bids me set ye free forthwith."
"Go on, then, and do hit. I've done hed a belly-full of settin' here strapped ter this cheer."
But the operator hesitated.
"Afore I turns ye loose, I'd like ter feel plum sartin thet ye hain't holdin' no grudge."
Halloway knew that, should he seem easily placated, he would not be believed, so he spoke with a voice of stern yet just determination.
"So holp me God, I aims ter demand full payment fer this hyar day--but I aims ter punish ther right man. Ye says ye only acted on orders from an officer, don't ye?"
"Thet's true es text."
"All right then, ye hain't ther man I'm atter, ef that's so. Mistakes will happen. As ter ther other feller, I kin bide my time fer a spell. I reckon my wrath won't cool none."
The Station Agent heaved a sigh of relief. "Hit's a right unfortunate thing," he declared sympathetically. "I've been studyin' erbout hit an' I said ter myself, 'what ef some enemy of his'n sent both them messages?'"
This seemingly innocent suggestion was by way of discounting the future when Halloway learned that the town marshal knew nothing of the matter.
The operator bent and unfastened the binders about the ankles and waist. That left only the handcuffs, and when he came to them once more a note of apologetic anxiety crept into his voice.
"Ther key ter them things is lost," he deprecated. "Ther best I kin do fer ye air ter file ther chain. Ye kin stick yore hands in yore pockets, though, an' nobody won't see 'em."
"Thet's good enough fer ther present time," assented Halloway. "Ef ye'll loan me thet file, I'll git 'em off myself--later on."
So while the giant stood with outstretched hands, the other filed through a link at the middle of the chain, and together the four men left the baggage room and went into the outer office. Its door was closed but Halloway, who walked ahead, laid a hand on the knob and paused to inquire, without rancor, "I reckon ye aims ter give me back my gun, don't ye?"
The operator promptly produced the weapon from the drawer of his table and Halloway made no examination to see whether it came back to him full-chambered or empty.
He had his own guess on that score, but he wished to appear unsuspicious just now, so he thrust the thing into its holster.
Then deliberately he turned the key in the door and that was, for a time, his last deliberate act. Seizing the fellow who stood nearest him, he swung him forward and held him as a partial shield before his own body.
"Thar's three of ye hyar," he announced in an abruptly ominous voice, "and one of me. Ef any man makes a move ter draw a gun, I aims straightway ter break this feller's neck. Don't let no man move from where he stands at!"
Astonishment enforced a momentary obedience, save that the man upon whose shoulders the gigantic hands lay--not as yet heavily--attempted to squirm away. Iron-like fingers bit into his flesh and, wincing with a smothered yell of pain, he stood trembling. Halloway passed one hand over his hostage's shoulder and drew the pistol from its holster--then he sent the fellow spinning from him like a top, and covered the others, who huddled close together. "Yore guns--grip-fust--an' speedily," he directed, in that still voice that carried terror, and brought immediate obedience.
"Ye promised us--thet ye wouldn't hold us accountable," whined the operator, and Halloway laughed, as he unloaded the captured pistols and tossed them into a corner.
"What I promised war not ter visit no revengeance on ther wrong fellers," he corrected. "Never mind how I knows hit--but I does know thet no message ever come from ther Coal City town marshal. Ther one that did come told about a plot ter lay-way an' rob a woman--an' ther three of ye war in on hit."
The terror of the unaccountable and wholly mystifying situation held them now in its paralysis. In no conceivable way could he have learned these things--yet he knew them and fears crowded as they wondered what else he might know as well.
But Halloway allowed them little leisure for abstract reflection.
"I've done throwed away them guns. I reckon ye knows whether mine's loaded or not--I don't. Now ther four of us air going ter hev a leetle frolic, right hyar an' now--a leetle four-cornered fight--jest fist an' skull fashion."
He walked across and locked the baggage-room door, though it was shuttered from the outside, and dropped the key within his pocket.
"Come on boys, let's start right in," he invited. "Fer yore own sakes hit's kinderly a pity ye couldn't git these irons offen me . . . they're right apt ter scar somebody up."
They knew that to get out they must fight their way out--and after all there were three of them. Flinging a heavy chair above his head, the quickest-witted of the trio hurled himself forward to the attack.
From Halloway's eyes shot bolts of Berserker battle-lust, and from under the down-sweep of the clubbed missile he glided as a trout slips away from a startling shadow. Before that assailant had recovered his equilibrium, Halloway had seized him up as a grown man might seize a small child and hurled him headlong at the operator, so that the two went down in a tangle of writhing bodies.
The third had not been idle and as Halloway straightened and wheeled, he met the cyclonic lunge of a snarling adversary with a lifted and wickedly gleaming dirk.
As the knife flashed down, the dodging Goliath felt its sting in his left shoulder--but only with a glancing blow which had been aimed at his throat. Blood was let but no great hurt done save that it roused him to a demoniac fury. The embrace in which the wielder of the blade was folded was like the snapping of a bear-trap and, not slowly but almost instantly, its victim dropped his weapon and hung gasping with broken ribs and stifled lungs.
Halloway cast him aside and wheeled again with lowered head, for two men were at him afresh with whatever things of weight came to their hands. Neither dared pause and desperation had endowed them with a strength as unwonted and exaggerated as that which his frenzy brings to a maniac.
The fallen figure lay quiet enough, but the remaining three swept in tempestuous chaos about the place. The table was wrecked--the furniture shattered--all were bleeding and panting in sob-like brokenness of breath.
Two bore the brand-like marks of handcuffs; the other a great welt across the forehead, left there by the large file, but at the end one figure straightened up--his task ended--and behind him lay three that would not soon be ready to fight again. Then, unlocking the door, Halloway let himself out into the night.
He paused on the platform and drew a long breath and after that, plunging his hands deep into his pockets, he strolled along whistling. But when he had come to the edge of the town and the road toward Wolf-Pen Gap, he broke into a run.
Alexander had stood waiting for a while at the edge of the rock, wondering who these men might be who were approaching with such an extremity of caution. Once more she was called on to endure the heart-chill of suspense, but when finally two figures slipped through the shaft-mouth with cocked rifles thrust out before them that tautness of nerve eased into relaxation. One of them--palpably nervous--was Will Brent. The other, with eyes agleam and an eagerness keyed for battle, was Jerry O'Keefe.
Yet as both took in the narrow and seemingly deserted area between the coal-seamed walls, their faces became heavy with disappointment. Other men followed them until eight or ten had crowded into the cavern, and very dejectedly Brent said, "We're too late. They've been here and gone."
Alexander, peering silently over the top of her rock, missed the face of Bud Sellers, the one man she had wholly trusted. She told herself that to suspect Brent or O'Keefe was ungenerous, yet out of her recent viscissitudes an exaggerated instinct of caution had been born, and she waited to judge the complexion of affairs before she revealed herself.
Jerry's engaging face grew vengefully dark as he turned toward Brent and spoke apprehensively.
"Ther place stinks with burnt gun-powder! Does ye reckon she showed fight--and they hurt her? Afore God, men, ef thet's true, I aims ter do some killin' my own self--I hain't nuver seed her but oncet--but I aims ter wed with thet gal!"
Then with a laugh that pealed through the place and brought them all around startled, Alexander emerged from her concealment.
"I almost feels sorry thet they didn't finish me--ef thet's ther fate thet's in store fer me," she announced.
Her eyes squarely met those of Jerry O'Keefe, and he reddened furiously, but at once Brent began asking and answering questions and in that diversion of attention the young mountaineer found escape from his discomfiture. The rescue party had encountered none of the men who had so recently vacated the mine. Outside the woods were "masterly wild and la'relly" and poroused with cavernous crags. The conspirators had evidently scattered and melted from sight as bees melt into a honeycomb.
But Alexander's face grew again serious and pained as she gave her most important information. "You men come a leetle too late. I driv 'em off--but them thet went last tuck my saddle-bags away with 'em."
Brent's only response to that was a brief gesture of despair. So after all the plotting, the counterplotting, the dangers and hardships; after all her own gallant efforts, the girl had lost the game.
He looked at her as she stood there repressing under a stoical blankness of expression, emotions which he thought must sum up to a worm-wood bitterness of spirit.
"We're wasting time here," he announced after a brief and painful pause. "They can't have gone far--we must comb these woods."
But Alexander shrugged her shoulders.
"Thar hain't no possible way of runnin' 'em down ternight," she said. "They've scattered like a hover of pa'tridges thet's been shot at, an' whichever one's got them saddle-bags is in safe hidin' afore now. I've got one more plan yit, but hit's fer termorrer. Let's go back thar an' sot thet Halloway feller free."
But halfway back they met a gigantic figure whose wrists jangled with the clink of steel chains as he swung his long arms. He was calm--even cheerful--of mood, now that he had appeased his wrath, nor did he seem concerned as to what might be the fate of the trio he had left behind him.
The skies had cleared and a moon had risen. No longer refusing the attendance of her bodyguard, Alexander insisted upon pushing on through Viper to her kinsman's house at Perry Center. It was as well that her foes should imagine her forces in full flight.
Though they had all spent arduous days and nights they made the last stage of the trip at an excellent rate of speed. After Wolf-Pen Gap and its vicinity had been left behind, the unspeakable wildness of the country gave way abruptly, as it so often does in Appalachia, to higher grounds where for a little way the roads run through almost parklike stretches, now silver and cobalt under a high moon.
Jerry O'Keefe had friends at Perry Center whose doors would open to him and his companions even at this inhospitable hour between midnight and dawn, and when they left Alexander at her threshold, she paused for a moment and turned with the moonlight on her face.
"Boys," she said softly, "I'm beholden ter every one of ye! Even ef we fails 'atter all, hit hain't because we didn't try hard and we hain't done yit."
Two of the men to whom she spoke were gazing at her with rapt eyes. O'Keefe was riding on that moonlit night at the gallop of bold dreams, and in his mind were visions of wedding and infare. Halloway's thoughts would perhaps have suffered by comparison, but in desire and the wild dream they were no less strong, and later when he and Brent lay on the same palet, in the cock-loft of a log house, he heaved a deep sigh and gave rein to his fancy.
"I'm going away from here," he announced, "and God knows I shall miss her as a man misses the brilliance of tropic seas and the luster of tropic skies."
"I thought you boasted that you meant to stay," commented Brent drowsily, but Halloway went on and soon he was talking to an unhearing and unconscious bed-fellow.
"I did--but I'm not a sheer fool. I told you that I had gauged my entrance with a nicety of judgment for dramatic values. I shall regulate my exit with the same sense. She likes to think herself a man, which means that she hasn't waked up yet, but some day she will."
He paused and his own voice became heavy with coming sleep. "She's had adventures that she won't forget--if I go away--her imagination will be at work. Later when Spring comes and the sap rises--and the birds--the birds----" There the voice trailed off into the incoherence of slumber.
Jase Mallows was sleeping, too, at that hour, and it was only by a lucky chance that it wasn't his final sleep. The terrain over which the group of highwaymen had been operating had centered about the mine shaft just back of the Wolf-Pen Gap. The distances between all the points involved had been short of radius save as prolonged by the broken formation of mountain and chasm, of precipice and gorge. There were caves and thickets and the Gap itself was what local parlance termed a "master shut-in."
When the chief body of alleged Ku-Klux operators had trailed out of the mine shaft, they had removed their masks and scattered into the raggedness. They could, if need exacted, have remained there for days, safe from discovery, each in his separate hiding place. One unfamiliar with this country of eyrie and lair, wonders at the stories of men hiding out successfully, but one who knows it marvels only that any man who has taken to the wilds is ever captured.
One of the last contingent to leave had stumbled on an inert and prostrate body in the dark as he crossed a ridge not far away. Cautiously he had investigated and had recognized Jase, who was unconscious and had lost much blood. His confederate paused for a time in a quandary as to what disposition to make of him. When to-morrow's news leaked out, wounded men would be suspected men, and those who accompanied them might share in that suspicion.
Yet to desert a comrade in that fashion was abhorrent even to the slack conscience of this desperado. So he grudgingly hefted the burden of the senseless figure and plodded under its weight to the nearest cabin.
There he told a story of how he had stumbled on his grewsome find in the open high-road--which was a lie--and his mystification of manner was so great as to constitute for himself a practical alibi.
Early the next morning, Brent, Halloway and O'Keefe went to consult with Alexander as to the next step. None of them meant to give up after going this far and the men fretted for immediate action, but Alexander to their mystification shook her head. "Not yit," she ruled. "I'm waitin' hyar now fer tidin's thet may holp us."
While they stood in the yard of the log house, a figure appeared plodding slowly along the roadway, and the girl's eyes were bent on it with a fixed anxiety. It came with such a weary lagging, with such a painful shuffling of feet and such an exhausted hanging of head that Brent at first failed to recognize Bud Sellers. The left arm hung with that limpness which denotes a broken bone.
"Good God," exclaimed the timber buyer under his breath, "I should hardly think he'd have the nerve to show himself here!"
But Bud looked only at the girl. He was on foot now but over his shoulders hung his saddle-bags. He halted and threw them at Alexander's feet.
"My mule got shot out from under me," he informed her quite simply, "an' I busted an arm--hit war a right slavish trip. Open them bags."
Alexander obeyed--and drew out a parcel bound in brown paper, bearing the bright red spots of the bank's sealing wax.
"I reckon, men," she said quietly, "we won't hev ter sot out afresh."
Brent, Halloway and O'Keefe gazed stupidly each on each. Incredulous amazement and perplexity tied their tongues. Finally Halloway found his voice to stammer, "What's done happened? How did Sellers git hit."
Then only Alexander threw back her head and let her laughter peal out.
"He's done hed hit all ther time," she announced. "You fellers hes done been staunch friends ter me--and I've got ter crave yore forgiveness ef I hain't trusted ye full free from then start." She paused and added solicitously, "But ye sees, ye forewarned me erginst them real robbers--an' Jase Mallows forewarned me erginst _you_. I 'lowed he war lyin'--but I couldn't take no chances. Thar war jest one feller I knowed I could trust without question, an' thet feller was Bud. So he tuck ther money an' thet bundle I rid away from bank with was jest make believe. I aimed ter lead 'em over a false trail."
"Outwitted ther pack of us," bellowed Halloway gleefully. "Afore God, I takes my hat off ter ye--but why didn't ye suffer some man ter tote ther dummy bundle?"
"Ef airy man had undertook hit," she responded gravely, "they'd most likely hev kilt him first--an' s'arched him 'atterwards."
Bud had dropped down on a step of the stile that led from the road to the yard. His heavy lidded eyes were full of weariness and pain. His limp arm sagged but he said slowly:
"Thet's why I run away, Mr. Brent. I had to. Two of us couldn't cross thar without goin' slow--and I couldn't let them saddle-bags git lost."
"So ye couldn't be quite sure who you could trust," repeated Halloway. "I hopes ye knows now."
But Brent, watching the light in the great fellow's eyes did not miss their hungry gleam and in a low voice he said, "Jack, _I'm_ not sure yet." _