Blacksheep! Blacksheep! Part 37

"But it was flirting; it was the silliest kind of flirting!"

"That is always a legitimate form of entertainment, a woman's right and privilege! Please put all this out of your mind!"

"It's not a thing to be dismissed so lightly. I'm very unhappy about it; I'm deeply ashamed of myself!"

"You exaggerate the whole matter," he urged. "You are making me out a miserable weakling indeed when you think I ambled off toward perdition just because you dared me to a.s.sert myself a little!"

"I want you to promise," she said slowly, "that you won't in any way interfere with my cousin here. I can't have you taking further risks.

After last night I doubt whether he bothers us. Ruth feels as I do about it; you must go away. You will promise, please--"

"You would have us run just as the game grows interesting! Of course we're not going to quit the field and leave that fellow here to annoy you! He's a dangerous character and we're going to get rid of him."

She was depressed, much as Ruth had been a few hours earlier and his efforts to win her to a happier frame of mind were unavailing.

"I love you; I love you!" he said softly.

"You must never say that to me again," she said slowly and determinedly.

"After my stupid, cruel thoughtlessness you must hate me--"

"But, Isabel--"

She seized the lantern and hurried away, her head bowed, the cloak billowing about her. He watched the lantern till its gleam was swallowed up in the darkness.

It was ten o'clock. Leary had got the outgoing mail--a week's acc.u.mulation, and they crossed to Huddleston where one of Perky's men was waiting with a machine to carry it to Calderville.

"The Governor didn't want the launch goin' up there ag'in," Leary explained. "He dug up that car somewhere."

"The Governor's a great man," said Archie.

"The greatest in the world!" Leary solemnly affirmed.

II

Shortly before midnight Archie and Leary left the _Arthur B. Grover_ and paddled cautiously toward the point fixed by the Governor for their rendezvous. They were fortified with a repeating rifle, a shotgun (this was Leary's preference) and several packets of rockets for use in signaling the tug. It was the strangest of all expeditions, the more exciting from the fact that it was staged in the very heart of the country. For all that sh.o.r.e or water suggested of an encompa.s.sing civilization, the canoe driven by the taciturn Leary might have been the argosy of the first explorer of the inland seas.

Archie, keenly alive to the importance of the impending stroke, was aware that the Governor had planned it with the care he brought to the most trifling matters, though veiled by his indifference, which in turn was enveloped in his superst.i.tious reliance on occult powers. Whether through some gift of prevision the Governor antic.i.p.ated needs and dangers in his singular life, or whether he was merely a favorite of the G.o.ds of good luck, Archie had never determined, but either way the man who called himself Saulsbury seemed able to contrive and direct incidents with the dexterity of an expert stage hand. The purchase of the _Arthur B. Grover_ had seemed the most fantastic extravagance, but the tug had already proved to be of crucial importance in the prosecution of their business. The seizure of Eliphalet Congdon had been justified; Perky and Leary were valuable lieutenants and the crew of jailbirds was now to be utilized as an offensive army.

Leary, restless because he couldn't smoke, spoke only once, to inquire Archie's judgment as to the pa.s.sage of time. The old fellow, long accustomed to lonely flights after his plunderings, possessed the acutely developed faculties of a predatory animal; and the point at which they were to debark having been fixed in his mind in a daylight survey he paddled toward it with certainty. He managed his paddle so deftly that there was hardly a drip that could announce their proximity to any one lying in wait on the bay. Several minutes before Archie caught the listless wash of calm water on a beach, Leary heard it and paused, peering at the opaque curtain of the woodland beyond the lighter shadow of the sh.o.r.e.

"We struck it right," he announced, returning from an examination of the sh.o.r.e markings.

They carried the canoe into the wood and lay down beside it, communicating in whispers.

"That girls' camp's on th' right; Carey's place to the left. Hear that!"

His quick ear caught the faint moan of a locomotive whistle far to the south. It was a freight crossing a trestle, he said, though Archie had no idea of how he reached this conclusion.

"Th' rest o' th' boys are away off yonder," and he lifted Archie's hand to point.

"How many?" asked Archie, who had never known the number of men dropped from the tug to make the swing round Carey's fortress.

"Ten; and a purty sharp bunch! You be dead sure they're right er ole Governor wouldn't have 'em!"

Leary's confidence in the Governor as a judge of character reenforced Archie's own opinion of the leader's fitness to command. That he should have been received into the strange brotherhood of the road, which the Governor controlled with so little friction, never ceased to puzzle him.

He was amused to find himself feeling very humble beside Leary, a poor, ignorant, unmoral creature, whose loyalty as manifested in his devotion to the Governor was probably the one admirable thing in his nature.

"Somebody may get hurt if we come to a scrimmage," he suggested. "What do you think of the chances?"

"When ole Governor's bossin' things I don't do no thinkin'," the old man answered. He raised his head, catching a sound in the gloom, and tapped Archie's shoulder. "It's him, I reckon."

An instant later the Governor threw himself on the ground beside them.

He was breathing hard and lay on his back, his arms flung out, completely relaxed, for several minutes. Archie had often wondered at his friend's powers of endurance; he rarely complained of fatigue, and very little sleep sufficed him. He sat up suddenly and said crisply:

"Well, boys, everything's ready!"

One by one his little army a.s.sembled, rising from the ground like specters. They gathered stolidly about the Governor, who flashed his electric lamp over their faces,--evil faces and dull faces, with eyes bold or shrinking before the quick stab of the gleam.

"Remember, you're not to shoot except in self-defense," said the Governor. "It's Carey, the leader, we're after. Those poor fools he's got with him think there's big money in this; I've told you all about that. They may run and they may put up a fight, but Carey must be taken prisoner. Spread out four paces apart for the advance, and move in a slow walk. When you hear me yell I'll be on top of the barricade. That's your signal for the dash to go over and get him."

Leary was already deploying the men. The Governor laid his hand on Archie's shoulder. In the contact something pa.s.sed between them, such a communication as does not often pa.s.s from the heart of one man to another.

"If it comes to the worst for me, you and Isabel will look out for Ruth.

I needn't ask you that. Use the tug quickly to clear things up here; there must be nothing left to tell the tale. See that old man Congdon keeps his promise. That will of his is in my blue serge coat in the closet of my room. If I die, bury me on the spot; no foolishness about that. I died to the world seven years ago tonight, so a second departure will call for no flowers!"

Tears welled in Archie's eyes as he grasped his friend's hand there in the dark wood under the world-old watch of the stars.

Leary reported everything in readiness, and the signal to go forward was given by a hand-clasp repeated along the line. Archie kept at the Governor's heels as they advanced, pausing every fifty paces for a methodical inspection of the company by Leary and Perky, the latter having left the tug in charge of the engineer and joined the party last of all.

When they reached the little stream that defined the boundary of Heart o' Dreams territory the Governor, Archie and Leary got in readiness for their dash across the bridge and over the barricade. The purl of water eager for its entrance into the bay struck upon Archie's ear with a spiteful insistence.

"There must be no chance of these fellows breaking past us and frightening the women at Heart o' Dreams," said the Governor. "We've got to make a clean sweep. But it's Carey we want, preferably alive!"

There was not a sound from the farther side of the stream. They crawled across the bridge and Archie ran his hand over the frame of logs against which stones had been heaped in a rough wall, as the Governor had explained to him. Archie had determined to thwart his friend's purpose to lead the a.s.sault, but while he was seeking a footing in the crevices the Governor swung himself to the top. His foot struck a stone perched on the edge and it rolled down into the camp with a great clatter.

As though it had touched a trigger a shotgun boomed upon the night, indicating that Carey had not been caught napping. Orders given in a shrill voice and answering shouts proclaimed the marshaling of his forces. Archie and Leary reached the Governor as he was crawling over the stones. Some one threw a shovelful of coals upon a heap of wood that evidently had been soaked in inflammable oil, for the flames rose with a roar.

It may have been that Carey had grown wary of murder as a means of gaining his end after the escapade of the previous night, for the first move of his men was to attempt to drive out the invaders with rifles swung as clubs. Carey screamed at them hysterically, urging them to greater efforts.

"Fight for the gold, boys! Fight for the gold!"

It seemed impossible that the men he had lured to his camp with the promise of gold would not see that he was mad. He flung himself first upon one and then another of the attacking party, a fanatical gleam in his eyes. Once, with two of his supporters at his back, he directed his fury against Archie. This invited a general scrimmage in which weapons were cast aside and fists dealt hard blows. When it ended Archie lay with friends and enemies piled upon him in a squirming ma.s.s. He got upon his feet, his face aching from a blow from a brawny fist, and found the two sides taking account of injuries and maneuvering for the next move.

The great bonfire kept the belligerents constantly in sight of each other, skulking, dodging, engaging in individual encounters poorly calculated to bring victory to either side. One of Carey's men lay near the barricade, insensible from a crack over the head from a rifle b.u.t.t.

His plight was causing uneasiness among his comrades, who began drawing back toward the shadows. Carey, seeing that their pluck was ebbing, cursed them. Only seven of the Governor's party had entered the barricade, the others having been left outside to prevent a retreat toward Heart o' Dreams in case the enemy attempted flight.

"We ain't gettin' nowhere!" growled Leary at the end of a third inconclusive hand-to-hand struggle with only a few battered heads as the result.

"There's gold for all of you!" screamed Carey to his men, and urged them to another attack.