He turned and rode through the darkness.He turned and rode through the darkness.
On the Squire's return to town, zealously urged by his mission to warn the officers of the law of the intended attack on the New Pike gate, he felt that supreme elation of spirits belonging to a man who already scents splendid victory in the near future.
Indeed, it promised to be a double one, for not only would he be enabled to strike an effective blow at the raiders, whose warfare on the toll-gates threatened him with a considerable financial loss, but he would also have it in his power to crush one whose ever-unwelcome presence in the neighborhood seemed likely to deprive the Squire of winning a wife.
The wily old man reasoned with himself that he would much prefer to have his nephew alive and in the penitentiary than simply dead. Incarceration would prove a far more lasting and complete revenge than death. In death there would only come a quick oblivion to theSquire's victory, on the nephew's part, while in a long imprisonment, which to the victim would be a living death, there would yet remain a daily and hourly comprehension of unhappy facts, besetting the helpless prisoner like a pack of hungry wolves attacking their prey—an ever-present hideous knowledge of his own powerless condition, and his uncle's complete mastery of the situation.
It was this wish, this growing hope to place his nephew in just such a living tomb, that fanned the hatred of the Squire into a glowing heat, and made him all the more determined that Milt should soon feel the blighting power of his wrath, even through walls of massive stone, and behind barred doors.
All the way to town the old man fed his sluggish imagination by picturing his kinsman and rival thus imprisoned, slowly eating away his heart in rage and solitude, understanding full well that his sweetheart had become the wife of the man he most hated in all the world. Ah! what could be a greater punishment than this? Death would prove sweet compared to it.
The Squire chuckled to himself in a sort offiendish delight at the mental picture of anguish he had conjured up.
In their last bitter quarrel, when the young man had been driven from the Squire's home, the nephew had boldly laughed in his uncle's face, taunting him with his age and decrepitude, and declaring that he would yet win the girl in spite of all that the old man might do.
Youth and manly beauty are a powerful offset to wealth and age in the eyes of a young woman. The Squire understood this fully, and chafed under the knowledge, but he resolutely determined to see what craft and cunning could accomplish in the unequal struggle. He made up his mind to marry the pretty toll-taker, though there were a dozen importunate suitors in the way. He would ruthlessly trample them all underfoot, or sweep them aside, as he meant to do his nephew, showing neither pity nor mercy.
Ofttimes perseverance is even more effective than love, and the Squire was not of the kind to be easily thwarted when he had once made up his mind to attain a desired result. Stubbornness and determination were his strongest characteristics. These two traits, cleverlyunited, have carried many a man to success.
Deep down in his wicked old heart he had carefully considered the plan of having his nephew put quietly out of the way—the Squire knew a man that money could easily buy for this purpose—but the Squire disliked to part with money, and besides he did not care to place himself in a position to be bled by a hireling.
For obvious reasons, therefore, it would serve his purpose much better if Milt got himself hopelessly entangled in the meshes of the law by his own acts, rather than the Squire should be accused of helping to bring about his nephew's ruin. There would be much less difficulty in winning the girl, the old man thought, ignorant of what she already knew.
As matters now stood, everything was working beautifully to his interest, and with the exercise of a little diplomacy, such as he well knew how to employ when occasion demanded, his plans would soon be happily accomplished, and his nephew's downfall speedily brought about.
When Squire Bixler got home again, after an interview with the sheriff, he replenishedthe fire, closed the shutters, and discarding his heavy boots for his carpet slippers, he gathered the papers about him, and sat down to read. Although his usual bedtime had passed, he only yawned occasionally, and consulted his heavy time-piece, or glanced at the tall clock in the corner.
Along toward the midhour of the night he suddenly aroused himself from the stupor of sleep that was beginning to lay hold of him, and, straightening himself in his arm-chair, listened attentively.
A sound which seemed at first elusive grew clearer to his alert ear, arousing his drowsy faculties to fuller consciousness. It was an easy matter to interpret that sound aright—indeed, his ear had done so quickly. It was a welcome sound for which he had been impatiently listening all these long, weary hours, and it signified the raiders were abroad.
The old man sat motionless, listening intently. Clear and distinct, in measures musical as steel hammers on an anvil, came the rapid hoofbeat of horses along the pike, now louder where the open fields spread out oneither side of the road, now dull and muffled when a hillock intervened.
As the sound grew nearer the Squire hastily arose, and blowing out his candle went to the window and opened it. The body of horsemen were even then passing his avenue gate.
Now the raiders were climbing the little hill that arose between his place and the toll-house, each fall of the iron shoes seemed a sharp, clear note, played in staccato time, on the hard, white surface of the pike, then the notes grew less distinct, softened and shaded as by a soft pedal, when the raiders descended the farther side of the hill. They must soon be at the very gate.
The Squire listened. There came a pause in the hoof music, then a solitary horseman took up the refrain. The listener recalled to mind the request that his recent nocturnal visitor had made concerning this advance guard—that harm should not come to him—and a grim smile played over the old man's face as he silently hoped that this one, too, might fall. The Squire had urged upon the sheriff that no man should escape—not one.
Suddenly a shot rang out—then another—two, three—a half-dozen. Quickly a volleypoured forth, startling the night with clamorous echoes.
The fight was on in fierce earnestness between the raiders and defenders of the gate.
The distance that Milton Derr had to go to reach the New Pike gate, from where the raiders halted and held parley, was but a short one, measured by paces, yet during that brief ride many irrelevant things came crowding fast upon his memory—indeed, it seemed that his whole life's history was swiftly reviewed in that brief period.
His boyhood days arose to his mind—those careless, happy days of early youth that were spent amid the wild, sweet freedom of the hills, from which he had just now ridden—the old schoolhouse in Alder Creek glen, that unforgotten spot where pretty Sally Brown had first ensnared his boyish heart and held it a willing captive ever since.
He recalled to mind the sharp pangs of jealousy Jade Beddow took a delight in arousing in his youthful bosom by showing marked attention to the object of their mutual admiration—then of gloomier matters, his mother's illness and her death, which had wrung his heart with the bitterest grief that had ever crept into his young life. There came to mind a memory of the subsequent home with his uncle—a home that meant little else than a mere shelter, and an opportunity for much hard work, for the Squire was a grasping man, close and calculating, and required of every one the last atom of effort.
Most clear in his memory was that eventful day when his uncle first learned that the smiles of the pretty toll-taker were rather for the nephew than for the uncle, and this discovery seemed suddenly to change the Squire's indifference toward his ward into an intense hatred, which smoldered for a while, then at last broke forth into a fierce flame of passion, when there was a bitter quarrel, and the young man was driven from his uncle's roof, and went back to live amid his native hills once more.
When Milton Derr made up his mind to join the raiders, he was actuated by the two strongest passions that sway the human heart—love and hate. The first and uppermost one urged him to join the band in order that hemight be able to influence the members to spare the New Pike gate, for the present, at least; the second made it evident that, by aiding in the general destruction of toll-houses throughout the county, and the abolishment of tolls, he would be in a position to do his kinsman much damage, and affect the most vulnerable spot in evidence—his pocket. Thus, in Derr's bosom, love and hate held almost equal sway.
All these things passed in hurried view through the rider's excited mind, like a fleeting panorama, brief, yet clear and intense as the glimpse of a surrounding landscape seen by the flash of the lightning's path across the starless heavens.
He once more recalled to mind the conversation that his sweetheart had overheard and repeated to him, which had taken place between his uncle and some unknown man upon the public highway. Could this mysterious person have been Jade Beddow, and had they arranged it between them to have him sent forward so that he might be shot, or taken prisoner? This was evidently the trap that had been so adroitly set, and into which he was now riding, though not without protest.
Won to this belief, he still rode onward unflinchingly toward the toll-house now looming up before him like a ghostly warning, and dimly outlined against the cold gray midnight sky.
Nature herself seemed steeped in profound slumber at this wan, late hour, and neither life nor movement was visible about the place. The solitary horseman appeared to be the only living object in all that cheerless, dimly-defined landscape. There was no sign of danger on any hand, no suspicious movement of a lurking enemy. The deep silence of night's midhour brooded over the quiet scene, and its peace fell heavily upon it like the mantle of darkness round about.
The lone rider began to look about him with growing confidence. It was all so quiet, so still, so filled with the hush of midnight—surely the monition he had received that the gate would be guarded must have been built on mere rumor without the foundation of fact.
When he came to the gate, he found the pole up, as it was wont to be at so late an hour of the night, and after pausing a brief moment, thinking tenderly of one within the darkenedtoll-house, he passed from under the raised pole, and rode a short distance along the road.
Once again he paused, and looked back, and listened. No sight or sound betrayed the presence of guard or officer. It must be that the posse had failed to materialize, believing the rumor of an impending attack mere idle talk. With a feeling of relief the horseman raised a whistle to his lips and blew a sharp call as a signal that the raiders might advance.
In quick response the clatter of many hoofs came beating down the road in rhythmic measure.
Suddenly—breaking harshly into the musical ring of the hurrying hoof-beats—rang the discordant note of a shot from out the darkness, and quick upon it came another, while the advance rider, startled and surprised by its unexpectedness, heard the bullet singing keenly past his ear.
An answering fire from the oncoming raiders, shooting at random, seeking an unseen and hidden foe, awoke the echoes, and speedily a volley of shots from both raiders and guards filled the quiet night with tumultuous sounds.
For a brief space of time Derr sat motionlesson his horse, making no effort to escape, stunned by the surprise of his attack, then realizing that a fight was really on, that the gate was under guard, and, despite his warnings, the band had gotten themselves into a jeopardous situation, while he, being a sworn member, must now stand or fall with it. He turned quickly about and dashed back to join his comrades.
The first shot had been the premature discharge of a gun in the hands of a nervous guard, who had fired before the raiders had reached the spot where the men lay in waiting.
This, coupled with the fact that the stone wall behind which the guards were concealed, was on a stretch of ground sloping from the road, caused the later volley of shots fired on the raiders to speed harmlessly overhead, while the raiders' answering fire was quite as futile.
The latter had been quick to respond to their unseen assailants, and had pressed on, reassured by the first single shot, but when met by a determined volley, the captain gave orders for a hasty retreat, quickly realizing that the band had ridden recklessly into an ambush, and that the odds were greatly against his men.
As the raiders turned, the advance rider dashed back to join them. Several bullets sang a keen note of danger as he galloped by, but he was unscathed.
A little beyond the gate one of the riders fell, or was thrown from his horse, which seemed to stumble, then quickly regain his feet, and, riderless now, dashed along the road after the retreating band.
As Milt came up, he suddenly checked his horse at the spot where the accident occurred, for the fallen man had risen to his feet, and was sorely in need of succor, since his horse had taken flight without him.
As he stood in the road, a dark shadow on a light background, seemingly dazed and uncertain what to do, Derr pulled up alongside, and bracing himself in his stirrups, leaned forward and cried hurriedly, "Leap up behind me!"
The man quickly obeyed, though clumsily, for his right arm appeared to be of little service to him, but with the mounted man's assistance he managed to climb up behind, and throw one arm around his deliverer, then both men bowed low over the saddle, yet not a momenttoo soon to avoid a parting volley fired at the two on the fleeing horse.
"The rest rid off an' left me, but you risked your life to take me up," muttered Steve Judson, as they galloped on through the night. "Milt Derr, I promise you I won't forget tonight."
"That's all right; hang on!"
The lurking shadows along the stone wall suddenly grew into animated forms, and the silence was broken by excited speech. The raiders faded as quickly into the night as they had come, while the faint echoes of retreating hoofs betokened a rapid flight of the band toward the hill country.
"Have we bagged any game?"
The guards hastily scrambled over the rock fence after a parting volley had been sent after the last retreating horseman, who had tarried a brief while in his retreat, and each guard was eager to find an answer to the leader's question.
"One man fell or dropped from his horse, I'll swear to that," the sheriff made reply, looking along the gloom of the road with expectant eyes. "We must surely have wounded one of them. It cannot have been a total loss of lead."
"No, for I'm hit," a voice made the doleful assertion out of the darkness farther along the fence line.
"Hello! Scott! Is that you? Are you much hurt?"
"Shot in the shoulder."
"Is that so?" asked the sheriff concernedly. "I'll look after your case at once. Anybody else hurt?"
"I believe a bullet went through my hat and grazed my skull"—this a second voice tinged with grave anxiety.
"If so, it probably flattened the bullet," was the unfeeling remark of a companion.
The girl from the toll-house appeared just then on the platform—a sudden apparition, startled of face, and with a hand that shook perceptibly as she carried an old tin lantern.
"Is anybody hurt?" she anxiously inquired.
"A wound in the shoulder of one of our men; nothing serious, I hope," and the sheriff came forward to reassure her.
"And the raiders—what of them?" The girl's query was hastily made.
"One fell from his horse, but we can find no trace of him. He seems to have escaped. Lendus your lantern," the sheriff added; "perhaps he crawled off into the weeds."
"Here's a hat I found in the road!" The words came from an excited guard.
"Fetch it to the light!" This from the sheriff.
The guard obeyed. As the hat was held close to the light of the lantern, which the girl held obligingly over the rail, the men crowded around, eager to examine the one trophy of battle.
"There's blood on it!" some voice exclaimed. "We must have wounded one of the rascals at least. Likely he's in hiding now, close by."
"Lend us your lantern, Miss Sally."
The sheriff reached out for it, but before his fingers closed over the handle, the girl's nervous hand suddenly relaxed its hold, and the lantern fell to the hard bed of the pike. The glass in the sides shivered as it struck, while the candle rolled out and was quickly extinguished in the white dust of the road. The girl became the picture of consternation.
"Oh!" she cried, "just see what I have done!"
"Perhaps it's the sight of blood. It makes some folks grow faint."
The sheriff spoke consolingly, pitying the girl's embarrassment, and covertly regretting the accident.
"I'm all upset!" acknowledged the pretty toll-taker frankly. She looked it, seemingly so innocent the while, one would scarcely have suspected the accident to have been hastily planned by woman's nimble wit, in order to gain yet more time before a further search could be made for the wounded man.
When the hat was held up to the light, the girl recognized it almost instantly as one Milton Derr was in the habit of wearing. He had worn it that very day when he passed through the New Pike gate. Its recent discovery by the guard, and the fresh stains of blood upon it, now filled her with sudden terror and consternation.
Was Milton Derr among the raiders? The hat was a silent witness to the fact. Had her lover been wounded? The blood stains gave conclusive evidence. Was it possible that Milt had ventured back with the raiders in the very face of the warning Sally had given him? Why had he risked so much? Ah! was it for her sake? She asked herself this with a suddenglow in her heart, set aflame by her lover's devotion, and a quick resolve was formed to aid him in his present strait.
Many perplexing thoughts arose. Why had he not in turn warned the raiders as she had expected him to do? Perhaps he had done so, but without avail. Could they have ignored the warning, or have forced him to come back with them? Possibly he came of his own accord to be of whatever assistance he could in the face of danger that threatened the inmates of the toll-house. The girl was in a sea of grave perplexities and conflicting thoughts.
The voice of the sheriff close at hand broke into her bewildered train of thought and recalled her abruptly to a sense of her surroundings.
"Miss Sally! I have stepped on the piece of candle and broken it. Can you get me another?"
"Yes, certainly; I'll go at once," she answered hurriedly, glad to escape into the toll-house, where her mother was busied hunting bandages with which to dress the arm of the wounded man.
"It seemed as if I'd never be able to find anotherpiece of candle," said the girl in apology when she finally came out after quite a little search. "My wits have left me completely—I'm dazed."
"Hadn't you better leave the hat with me?" she asked with affected indifference as the sheriff and his posse started off with the light to look for the wounded raider along the road.
"I might as well do so;" then, as he was about to comply, the sheriff added on second thought, "no, I'll take it along to shield the candle from the wind, now that the lantern glass is broken."
At the spot where the hat had been picked up the searchers found some dark splotches sprinkling the dust of the pike, as if blood had fallen there, but the owner of the lost hat was nowhere to be found. The men searched carefully some distance along the way, and closely examined the patches of dusty weeds in the fence corners, but without reward.
"I am positive one of the raiders carried him off," insisted the guard.
"But for Gregory getting excited and firing before the raiders had gotten in close range, we would certainly have killed or capturedsome of them, perhaps have bagged the whole band by closing in upon them from each end of the road. This comes of having green recruits," the sheriff added grimly.
When the posse had gone with the lantern, Sally went once more into the house and began to assist her mother in caring for the wounded guard, but the girl's thoughts were far from being centered on the object of her present skill and care, and she listened momentarily and with growing anxiety for additional news concerning the owner of the lost hat.
Could it be that it was not Milton's, after all? She felt almost positive that she had made no mistake in regard to its ownership, and she had suggested the leaving of the hat with her that she might give it a closer scrutiny and satisfy herself on this point.
If the hat were really Milton Derr's, on the under lining, inside the band, was his name and hers, both done in red ink, along with an arrow-pierced heart, and the date on which the names had been written—September 10th.
There had been a little picnic on this date. She and Milton, along with Sophronia andher beau, and a few others, had gone for an outing up in the hills. The usual rain that invariably and maliciously awaits such gatherings suddenly came up, and the party had taken shelter for a time in the old schoolhouse in Alder Creek glen—the very log building where Sally's first girlish fancy had been captured by Milt's dark eyes and ruddy face. Here, as a stripling, he had fought battles for his lady love, and Jade Beddow had sought in vain to supplant him in her affections.
While the picnic party had waited for the rain to abate, Milt had usurped one of the children's desks, and written the two names on the inner lining of his hat-band, covertly showing the results of his skill to Sally.
If these names should be discovered, and discovery was imminent, it would clearly fasten the ownership of the hat on Milton Derr, even if no one could identify it otherwise. She felt a growing eagerness to get possession of the hat, and tear out the tell-tale lining, yet she dared not betray her anxiety, lest it arouse suspicion and hasten the discovery she would gladly avert.
In the midst of her uncertainties and fearsshe caught sound of Squire Bixler's voice outside the toll-house.
He had hurriedly put on his shoes and great coat, and ridden over to the gate to learn the results of the fight between raiders and guards, prudently waiting, however, until the firing had ceased; and he had heard, with deep disappointment and regret, the retreating hoof-beats of horses galloping toward the hills. Despite the sound, he hoped that one raider at least had been left behind.
The Squire's chagrin was poignant when he learned that not a single member of the band had been either killed or captured, and that the sole spoil of battle, on which he had so largely counted, was but a gray felt hat, streaked with blood, that had been picked up in the middle of the dusty road.
"By heaven!" cried the Squire wrathfully, when this single trophy was shown him, "I'll find the owner of that hat and punish him, if it takes every detective in the state to help me to do it."
The morning following the exciting experiences of the raiders' attack and repulse at the New Pike gate, soon after the clearing away of the breakfast dishes, Sally, on the alert, caught sight of Squire Bixler's buggy coming over the hill, the loose side-curtains idly flapping to and fro in the fresh morning breeze like the wings of some bird of ill-omen. Indeed, she felt, on seeing the vehicle, that its very appearance presaged evil, if not to her, at least to one very dear to her.
Usually she let her mother open the gate to the Squire if his coming was noticed in time for an avoidance, but this morning she made it convenient to be out on the platform, sweeping away industriously, when he drove up.
"Good morning, Miss Sally! I suppose you are quite glad to find yourself alive, and with the toll-house roof still over you."
"Yes," she answered promptly, "glad and grateful, too!"
"What brings you out so early this morning?" she asked, smiling pleasantly on the Squire as she raised the gate which had so fortunately escaped the raider's axe the night previous.
"Business," answered he with emphasis, "important business. Before the day is over, I hope to have a warrant served on the owner of that hat which was picked up last night. If I can get only one of the rascals caught and safely jailed, it will not be such a difficult matter to ferret out the rest of the gang."
"Have you discovered anything more?" asked Sally, trying to disguise the anxiety in her tones as she made the inquiry.
"Nothing definite, although there's one man among the guards who thinks he can identify the hat. I'm taking it to town now to show to the merchant that probably sold it."
The girl's heart sank within her at the words. It would be little short of a miracle if the tell-tale names were not found and the hat's ownership revealed.
While the Squire was speaking, Mrs. Brown came out on the platform.
"Let me see that hat," she said. "It's likelyI may know the wearer myself. I was so busy last night attendin' to George Scott's arm that I didn't do more than glance at the hat."
The squire handed out a package done up in a piece of newspaper, which Mrs. Brown opened, and taking the hat held it up at arm's length, perched on her outspread fingers, viewing it critically, her head slightly askew.
"I've seen that hat before," she said thoughtfully; "now who was a-wearin' it?"
"There's likely a hundred such hats in the county," interposed Sally quickly. "I've seen a dozen or more myself."
"No, you don't see so many of these light gray felts," avowed her mother, bringing the hat nearer. "Mebbe it's got a cost mark, or the maker's name; that would tell a body more concernin' it."
She turned the hat upside down and looked carefully at the lining.
"Let me take it into the house and brush some of the dust off it," interposed Sally hastily, fearing every moment that the hidden names would be revealed, under her mother's inquisitive scrutiny.
"No! no! let it be, just as it is," said theSquire, perchance put on the alert by Sally's manner, and suspicious of her ill-concealed desire to get the hat in her possession.
"Look here! what's this on the underside of the lining of this band?" asked Mrs. Brown, as she ran her fingers around the inside of the crown, and pulled down the lining. "It looks like writing, only it's red," she added, squinting her eyes after the manner of one whose vision has begun to fail.
At that moment Sally felt as though she fairly hated her mother's prying nature.
"What is it, Sally?" asked her mother; "your eyes are younger than mine."
The girl, after a careless glance, but with a sickening sense of fear taking possession of her as she recognized the arrow-pierced heart and the two names written underneath, answered in as calm and collected voice as she could command, "It looks like streaks of blood."
She partly averted her face as she spoke, for she felt that her mother or the Squire would read in her very eyes the secret she was striving to hide. There was no longer a doubt of the hat's ownership. It was Milton's Derr's beyond all questioning, and the discovery ofhis name and hers written therein was now but a matter of brief delay, as the Squire's next words seemed to indicate.
"I'll have it closely examined when I get to town. It will not be a hard matter to locate its owner, I think."
"Would you mind giving me a seat to town?" asked the girl suddenly, beset with a new resolve.
"Certainly not." The Squire was plainly tickled. "I'll be only too glad of your company," he said, smiling genially.
"What's goin' to happen?" asked Mrs. Brown wonderingly. It was a new mood for Sally.
"I've just thought of something that I've got to do, and if the Squire'll take me along with him, it'll save me the trouble of saddling Joe. I'll be ready as soon as I get my cloak and hat," added she, disappearing in the house.
"Humph!" exclaimed Mrs. Brown, looking first after her daughter, then at the Squire. "This looks a little as if Sally was comin' to her senses at last."
"Just give her a little time, my dear madam,a little time," advised the Squire, smiling all over his fat, red face. "She'll come around all right by and by."
When the Squire and Sally drove off, she seemed lost in thought, and only answered in monosyllables to her companion's gallant attempts to be agreeable.
"What's the matter, Miss Sally?" he asked at last, piqued at her silence and indifference. "You act as if you might be in love," he added with a jocose look.
"Perhaps I am," acknowledged Sally turning the full battery of her pretty eyes upon her companion, until his pulse quickened as it had not done in years. He made an effort to speak, but the words failed him, and he only edged a little closer to her. For a wonder, she did not attempt to draw farther away. Was she really coming to her senses, as her mother had predicted?
"Do you remember the ride we took a few weeks ago, an' what you said to me?" she asked slowly, and with averted eyes.
"My dear, I have thought of little else, I do assure you," answered the Squire promptly,suddenly finding speech, now that the dazzling battery was withdrawn.
"Well, I have thought a good deal of it myself of late," admitted Sally thoughtfully. "You profess to think a lot of me, but I expect you would refuse me the least little favor I might ask of you."
"Have you usually found me a hard-hearted old skinflint?" asked the Squire reproachfully.
"I've never put your kindness to a very great test, as yet. I thought I would begin with asking a little favor. You wouldn't refuse me that now, would you?"
The girl looked up smiling into the old man's face, and brought all the coquetry at her command into play.
"What is the favor?" asked the Squire shrewdly. "I never like to make a promise till I know what I'm promising."
"It's about the smallest possession you have, and the one least valuable to you."
"Well, what is it?"
"I want the hat that was picked up last night."
"Hum—m—m!" said the Squire meditatively."In what manner does that hat concern you?"
"How it concerns me, does not concernyou," retorted the girl promptly, with an arch glance.
"I don't know about that. Whatever concerns you, concerns me deeply, ducky!"
"Will you give me that hat?" persisted Sally.
"You fear it will be recognized?" ventured the Squire, and the girl winced under the words. "Well, it will be, before I've done with it. Of course I know it's that rascally Milt's hat," added the Squire shrewdly following up the clue the girl's manner and request had given him. "Haven't I seen him wear it, time and again? He had it on Court day," hazarded the speaker.
He noted the quick start his companion gave, and the look of fear that overspread her face and crept into her eyes. A sudden thought occurred to him. He was now in a better position to strike a bargain than he soon would be again.
"Now, suppose we put this matter on a strictly business footing," he said blandly."You want the hat and I want a wife. A fair exchange is no robbery."
"Don't say that!" exclaimed Sally, as though a sharp pain had suddenly entered her heart. "You are cruel!"
"Not in the least!" retorted the Squire. "It's you that's cruel, my dear! You have it in your power to make me the happiest of men, and incidentally keep a friend of yours out of the penitentiary. The whole matter rests with you."
The girl made no answer.
"The case stands thus," he persisted. "If my nephew is a lawbreaker, he deserves punishment. As I am president of this road, and a large stockholder, too, and he's doing his utmost to injure and destroy my property, I fail to see why I should show him any sympathy or favor. If I do, it will be solely on your account, not his. It's up to you whether Milt goes free or is punished."
"On just what conditions will you let him go free?" asked the girl quickly.
"On your promise to marry me."
"Oh, no!" she cried sharply, "not that!"
"Just that," insisted the Squire.
"And if I don't promise?" she asked in a low tone.
"It puts him in a place where you can't marryhim," answered her companion promptly.
They drove on in silence until the edge of the town was reached.
"Here we are in town," the Squire said. "Shall I drive you to the sheriff's office with me?"
"Why are you going there?" asked his companion faintly.
"To give up this hat and swear out a warrant for its owner."
"Don't go!" pleaded Sally.
"It all rests with you as to whether I go or not," replied the Squire, his bold, unpitying eyes bent full upon her. "Milt can either be a free man or a felon—which shall it be?"
His eyes were fixed on hers in a concentrated gaze that seemed to fascinate her like the gaze of the wily serpent charms the ensnared bird. There was a confused buzzing in her head, a thousand small voices crying out, "Save Milt! Save Milt!" Her very power of will appeared to be ebbing away.She saw only those hard, unyielding eyes, she heard only those inner voices crying out in her lover's behalf.
"I'll promise!" she faltered.
"When?" asked the Squire.
"I don't know, some of these days," she cried desperately, quite at her wits' end.
"That's too indefinite," insisted her companion. "S'pose you marry me a week from to-day?"
"Oh! no! no! not that soon! Give me a little more time," she pleaded. Something would surely come to her aid, if she gained time, she knew not what. A wild thought came into her head that perhaps she might yet run away with her lover. At all events, a delay would give him time to get away, whether she went or not.
"Two weeks, then," said the Squire slowly, "no longer."
"Well," she said faintly.
"Then you'll agree to marry me?"
"Yes," she answered recklessly.
"Two weeks from to-day?" he insisted.
"Yes," she answered again, her voice dropping almost to a whisper.
"All right! A bargain's a bargain!" cried the Squire gleefully. "I'll drive to the sheriff's and tell him I lost the hat coming to town."
"Give it to me!" asked the girl eagerly.
"Oh, no, my dear, not yet!" he answered, with a grimace, thrusting the bundle into an inner pocket of his great-coat. "I'll just keep it next to my heart as a reminder of your promise. I'll give it to you the morning of our wedding—as a token of love and affection," added he with a chuckle of satisfaction.
A larger number than usual of possible customers and evident idlers were gathered at Billy West's country store on the Tuesday morning following Court Day, discussing the latest news.
The building was a small one-room frame, set in an angle made by the Willis Mill dirt lane and the New Pike, an ideal spot for an exchange of news, often bordering on gossip, and a convenient halfway resting place for those homeward bound, or else on their way to mill or town.
The proprietor's small stock of merchandise consisted of a heterogeneous collection, well suited to the needs of the locality, and ranging in variety from knitting needles, for the industrious matron at her fireside in the long winter evenings, to plow-shares, which her sturdy spouse might grasp when the soil demanded tilling in the spring. The variedmixture of farming implements, groceries and clothing presented the appearance of having been deposited by some friendly passing whirlwind, for the owner was of far too sociable a nature to devote much time to "stock-keeping."
When an article was wanted, it generally had to be hunted for, unless it chanced to fall under the immediate range of vision of salesman or customer, while the crowded shelves and counters presented a bewildering array of tinware, glassware, patent medicines, clocks, trimmed hats, churns, gaudy neckwear, cheap clothing, mock jewelry, hair-oils and colored perfumes put up in glass bottles of seductive shapes, along with sundry articles great and small necessary to the needs and adornment of the people of the surrounding country.
It was not for lack of time that Billy allowed his stock to fall into this chaotic confusion, for he had much leisure on his hands, but, as I have before remarked, he was of a sociable nature, and usually spent his spare moments tilted back in a well-worn chair under a locust tree, if the weather was warm, indulging in neighborhood news, or else was engagedin an exhaustive argument with his circle of solons as to how the government should be properly run.
If the season necessitated shelter, the usual coterie removed its sittings to the rear of the store, while during the rigorous winter months checker-playing afforded amusement, the board being of white pine, home-made, in alternate inked squares, and the checkers of black and white horn buttons supplied from the general stock.
On the morning I have mentioned, the air was yet cool from a frosty night, but the sun shone brightly, giving promise of speedy warmth, as the day advanced, and the little company chose the sunlight, being sheltered from the breeze by the front of the building, which faced the east.
Moses Hunn, an old stager, was descanting on the previous night's raid, having first borrowed a chew of long-green tobacco from his nearest neighbor. Moses was an inveterate chewer and had been relying on his friends for tobacco for the last twenty years.
"Yes, sir, they say them night-riders fit like wild cats."
"The guards didn't seem to be of much use," interposed Billy.
"They were pretty good at stopping bullets," Moses averred. "George Scott was shot three times in the leg an' twice in the body, I heard, an' four bullets grazed Joe Waters' skull."
"It must be bullet-proof," a voice insisted.
"The news is they've shot one of the riders, too. Leastways, blood was found on the pike, an' also on a hat one of the raiders dropped."
"Any of you wearin' new hats this mornin'?" asked Billy with an affected show of inspecting the head-gear of the crowd.
"I noticed Mose limpin' as he come up," a voice declared.
"Mose has been drawin' a pension for that same limp for a good many years past, so I don't think the guards can be charged withthat," affirmed the storekeeper.
"Well, folks seem bent on havin' free roads," remarked the owner of the limp, as he sighted a knot-hole in a box near by, and, with the aim of a practiced chewer, adroitly sent a squirt of tobacco juice through it.
"Yes, an' I'm mightily afraid folks'll havethe worst of the bargain when they do get free roads," answered Billy, with a dubious shake of his head. "We won't have no such good roads as we've got now."
"Free roads'll make dead agin you, Billy," insisted Mose. "I'm not blamin' you for not favorin' 'em, for when folks can go to town, an' it not costin' 'em a cent, of course they're goin' so you'll lose many a good nickle that now drops in your till."
"How did the sheriff get wind of the raid?" asked Billy, changing an unpleasant subject.
"There must be a traitor."
"Lordy! I wouldn't care to be in his shoes if they ever find him."
"They'll find him all right enough."
"An' swing him, high as Haman."
"Sure!"
Along in the evening, soon after sundown, Billy West closed his store a full half-hour earlier than usual, and went to his boarding house, not a great distance away. A little later he might have been seen cantering down the pike on his chestnut filly, arrayed in his best suit, and wearing the reddest and most conspicuous necktie his stock afforded, while theoily smoothness of his locks, and the odor of cheap cologne that hung persistently about him, announced the fact that he was on pleasure bent. To one acquainted with the state of his affections, it was an easy matter to guess that old man Saunders' was his probable destination.
This proved to be the case. Only the day before he had made an engagement with Sophronia to escort her to the New Pike gate, where she was to spend the night with her bosom friend, Sally, then go on to town the next day to do some shopping.
"I scarcely knew whether to come for you or not, after what happened last night," said the cavalier apologetically, when he reached Mr. Saunders'.
"I couldn't have blamed you, if you hadn't come," declared Sophronia frankly. "Is it safe to go?" she asked in sudden perplexity.
"I don't think you'll be disturbed tonight, after the failure the riders made last night. There's an old sayin' that lightnin' seldom strikes twice in the same place."
"But night-riders may," insisted Sophronia.
"I doubt it. Even if they should come,they wouldn't wantyou. I really don't know of but one person that does," Billy added with an engagingly meaning look.
"I could name half a dozen, at least," retorted Sophronia, with a coquettish toss of her head, as her cavalier assisted her to mount.
Sally was most glad to see her visitors, for she earnestly hoped through Sophronia or her beau, at least, to learn something of Milton Derr—whether there were any rumors of his being hurt, or if either of them had seen him since yesterday. If not, it augered ill for the owner of the blood-stained hat which had been picked up in the road near the toll-house.
Finally, when her mother had gone out of the room, Sally hurriedly asked concerning the young man, and on learning that he had not been seen, she added that she had an important message for him, and asked Billy to tell him so within the next day or two, if possible.
That night in the privacy of her room, and under a promise of the deepest secrecy on Sophronia's part, Sally confided to her bosom friend the besetting fear that Milt had been wounded the night before.
"Try and see him for me. If he's much hurt, let me know at once, but if he isn't, tell him to leave here as quickly as possible, that he is strongly suspected of being a raider, and to go away before any arrests are made. Tell him to go at once."
"How did you find out about the night-riders coming?" asked Sophronia.
"Through Squire Bixler. He's got a spy that's keeping him posted, and, I believe, this spy told him they would come last night."
"How do you know there's a spy?" asked her friend thoughtfully.
"I overheard him talking to the Squire one day when I was hid behind the stone wall that runs along the pike," and straightway the girl related the whole occurrence to her friend. "It's a hatched-up plot between the Squire and this man to get Milt into trouble," she added in conclusion.
"Didn't you see who the other man was?" asked Sophronia, beginning to connect this fact with some other circumstances in her mind, as links are added to a chain.
"No I was afraid to peep over the fence for fear they might see me."
"Could it have been Jade Beddow?"
"No, I would have known his voice. It wasn't him, I'm certain of that. There was something about the man's voice that held a familiar sound, as if I had heard it before, but I can't place it."
"Do you think you would recognize it if you should hear it again?"
"Yes, I'm sure I should."
"Then I b'lieve I can run that spy to the ground," said Sophronia decisively. "I believe I know the man an' the place where he's buried the money he got for tellin' on the raiders."
"You don't say!" cried Sally, in open-eyed wonder.
"Yes," answered her friend impulsively. "You go back with me to-morrow noon, when I come from town, an' I'll take you to the very spot, an' show you the very man."
Sally needed but little persuasion to consent to go home with her friend the next day, for in addition to Sophronia's promise to show her the supposed spy—the man who was in league with the Squire against his own nephew—she had also promised Sally to get word to Milton Derr to come to her house that night.
In case the young man was wounded and could not come, a trusted messenger, either Billy West or Sophronia herself, would see that he received Sally's message of warning.
Shortly after the two girls reached Mr. Saunders', they set out to pay a casual visit to Mrs. Judson's, ostensibly to learn how the rag carpet was progressing, but chiefly that Sally might see and hear the master of the place, and so decide if Steve Judson were really the man she had overheard plotting with the Squire.
The edge of the ravine was reached, andSally was taken to the clump of cedar bushes from behind which her friend had covertly watched the secret burial of the jar containing the money.
"I wonder if the money's still there?" asked Sally in a low tone, as the tree was pointed out to her.
"I reckon so," answered Sophronia. "We might go look, only there's a possible danger of his coming upon us in the act. Hush! listen!" she cautioned, almost in the same breath, warningly pressing her companion's arm. "I hear somebody comin' up the ravine, now. Don't move! I shouldn't be surprised if it wasn't Steve himself," she added in a whisper. "He's comin' to see if his Judas money is safe!"
"Suppose he should spy us?" asked Sally in sudden trepidation.
"But he can't, these bushes will hide us securely." "Yes, it's him," she continued softly, as she cautiously parted the thick foliage and peered through; "he's comin' up the ravine, an' he's got his arm in a sling," she added a minute or two later as she withdrew her facefrom the opening and signalled Sally to take her place.
Thus the two, alternating their keen watch, saw Steve reach the spot Sophronia had pointed out but the moment before, as the secret burial place of the treasure, and when he had reached it he immediately began to dig with one hand in the ground to unearth the glass jar.
He was some little time in doing this, hampered as he was with one arm in a sling, but at last the job was happily accomplished, and holding the jar between his knees, as Sophronia remembered also to have done, he unscrewed the lid with his free hand, and was soon deeply engaged in counting over the bills.
"Hello! Steve! what in the devil air you doin'?"
So intent was Judson in his pleasant and unusual occupation, and so interested the two spectators behind the cedar bushes, that the presence of a fourth party was quite unknown and unsuspected by all until a voice broke abruptly and startlingly on the quiet of the spot.
Steve gave a nervous start, as if he had receivedan electric shock, and almost dropped the roll of bills that was spread out on his knee, while the quick move he made overturned the jar at his feet, and sent it rolling down the declivity, until it broke with a sharp crash on the rocks in the dry bed of the stream below.
Even the two girls came near betraying their presence by a cry of surprise at the unexpected intrusion. Close upon the words of the new-comer, and before Steve could gather up his money and hide it, the bushes on the opposite side of the ravine, right above Steve, were parted, and a man caught hold of a wild grape-vine hanging from a tree, jutting out over a ledge, and lightly swung himself down to within a few feet of where Steve sat. It was Jade Beddow.
"I went to your house huntin' you, an' your wife said you was down in this direction somewheres. How's your arm gettin'?" the speaker suddenly caught sight of the bank bills on Steve's knee, and broke into a low whistle of astonishment.
"Well,—great—Je—ru—sa—lem! where'd you git all that money?" he asked in frank surprise.
"I—I—I've been savin' it up for a rainy day," stammered Steve, nervously clutching the bills in his one hand, and crushing them into his broad palm, as if to hide them from Jade's keen eyes.
"How much 've you got there?" questioned his companion curiously.
"I don't know," answered Steve, hurriedly. "Not much, though—I was just countin' it when you come."
"It rather surprised you, didn't it?" asked Jade with a laugh.
"I should think so," acknowledged Steve. "You must have slipped down here mighty quiet."
"I did," admitted Jade. "I wanted to see what mischief you was up to. I didn't expect to catch you countin' money like some banker. What's this hole in the ground? Been buryin' it, you d—n miser?"
"It's safer than riskin' it in a bank, where you don't know who's going' to steal it."
"That's true," agreed Jade, stooping to pick up the scrap of paper which had been wrapped around the money, and had now dropped on the ground at Steve's side. Itwas the identical scrap that had given Sophronia a clue as to how this money had come into Steve's possession, and when Jade picked it up, she waited anxiously to see if he would also make a similar discovery.
At first the intruder glanced at it carelessly and seemed about to crumple it up in his hand, then suddenly the whole expression of his face changed as his eyes fell on the printed matter. He read it hastily, and quickly turned on Steve in accusing anger.
"You scoundrel!" he cried, shaking the scrap of paper in his companion's face. "You got this money by sellin' out. You've betrayed us!"
"I haven't," Steve stoutly denied, although his face turned a sallow white as he spoke. "Who says I told on the band?"
"The proof's right here," affirmed Jade, again shaking the scrap of paper violently in Steve's face. "Here's the reward offered for information concernin' the riders. You're the traitor, and you alone!"
"I'm not!" persisted the accused, though his voice seemed less assertive than before, and held in its tone a quality of fear. "You've noright to say so. I picked up that scrap of paper on the side of the road the other day."
"Yes, an' you also picked up the traitor's price along with it," sneered Jade Beddow. "I'll just save this for future use," he added, folding the paper and thrusting it in his pocket.
"What use?" asked Steve nervously.
"As evidence when you come to be tried for a spy," answered Jade calmly. "You haven't forgot this soon the penalty of betrayin' our band, have you?" he continued in a sterner voice, fixing his cold, piercing eyes full upon his companion.
"I never done it," muttered Steve, letting his eyes drop before the close scrutiny of Jade's gaze. "You cain't prove it."
A sudden thought came to the accuser as he stood looking at the culprit, who squirmed about uneasily under the penetrating eyes, and the tones that Jade next employed suggested rather an argument than a threat. His voice dropped into almost a persuasive key.
"Now look here, Steve!" he said quietly, "I've caught you dead to rights, an' you cain't squirm our of it, so you needn't try. You soldyourself for this money, don't deny it. You haven't saved up fifty cents in the last ten years, you know it, yet here you sit with a handful of crisp new bank-notes, tellin' me you earned 'em honestly. Ha! ha! that's a good one! The devil himself would laugh at a joke like that."
Jade Beddow folded his arms and looked down on the poor wretch at his feet, who gave no evidence of the humor of the situation.
"Now see here, Steve! you're in a tight fix, sure an' certain, but if you'll do just as I tell you, I'll promise to get you out."
"How?" asked Steve hoarsely, a growing sign of weakness manifest.
"By fixin' the deed on somebody else."
"Who?"
"Milt Derr."
Steve remained silent.
"Fix it on him, an' it saves you. You'll have to lie a bit, but you're good at that."
"I cain't put it on him—don't ask me!" cried Steve sharply. "He done me a good turn only the other night. I cain't lie on him now."
Jade gave a sudden, short, harsh laugh. "Your conscience is gittin' mighty tender, all of a sudden," he said derisively.
"He stopped an' took me up behind him, after the rest of you had rid off. But for him I'd be in jail, right now."
"All right! you can do as you please about the matter," answered Jade coolly. "Only there's a much hotter plac'n the jail, they say, which you stand a mighty good chance of reachin', an' d—n quick, too. If you want to suffer a traitor's fate, you can do so, I'll see that you get your just desserts, an' quickly. I've showed you an easy way to escape. You can take it or leave it, just as you choose."
He turned as if to go, while Steve caught at him, as a drowning man at a straw.
"I'll testify ag'in him!" cried Steve despairingly.
"Very well! That's a bargain. We're goin' to have a meetin' to-night, at the old stone quarry near the bridge. Be on hand without fail, an' remember, that it'shimoryou," he added significantly.