The Cattle-Baron's Daughter Part 23

There was a rattle, and the venomous, conical-headed cartridge slipped from Miss Schuyler's fingers. She had never handled one before, and it seemed to her that a horrible, evil potency was bound up in that insignificant roll of metal. Then, while the rifle click-clacked in Hetty's hands, Torrance stood by the window holding up a handkerchief. He called out sharply, and there was a murmur of derision in the darkness outside.

"Come out!" said a hoa.r.s.e voice. "We'll give you a minute. Then you can have a sleigh to drive to perdition in."

The laughter that followed frightened Miss Schuyler more than any threats would have done. It seemed wholly horrible, and there was a hint in it of the fierce exultation of men driven to desperation.

"That wouldn't suit me," said Torrance. "What do you want here, any way?"

"Food," somebody answered. "You wanted to starve us, Torrance, and rode us out when we went chopping stove wood in the bluff. Well, you don't often miss your supper at the Range, and there's quite enough of it to make a decent blaze. You haven't much of that minute left. Are you coming out?"

"No," said Torrance briefly, and, dropping the handkerchief, moved from the window.

The next moment there was a flash in the darkness, and something came whirring into the room. The girls could not see it, but they heard the thud it struck with and saw a chip start from the cedar panelling. Then, there was a rush of feet, and twice a red streak blazed from the window. A man jerked a cartridge, which fell with a rattle from his rifle, and a little blue smoke blew across the room. Flora Schuyler s.h.i.+vered as the acrid fumes of it drifted about her, but Hetty stood very straight, with one hand on the rim of the table.

"Got n.o.body, and they're into the shadow now," said a man disgustedly, and Flora Schuyler, seeing his face, which showed a moment fierce and brutish as he turned, felt that she could not forget it, and most illogically hated him.

For almost a minute there was silence. n.o.body moved in the big room, where the shadows wavered as the faint flickering lamplight rose and fell, and there was no sound but the doleful wail of the night wind from the prairie. It was broken by a dull crash that was repeated a moment later, and the men looked at one another.

"They've brought their axes along," said somebody. "If there's any of the Michigan boys around they'll drive that door in."

"Watch it, two of you," said Torrance. "Jake, can't you get a shot at them?"

A man crouched by the open window, which was some little height from the ground, his arms upon the sill, and his head showing against the darkness just above them. He was, it seemed to Miss Schuyler, horribly deliberate, and she held her breath while she watched, as if fascinated, the long barrel move a little. Then its muzzle tilted suddenly, a train of red sparks blew out, and something that hummed through the smoke struck the wall. The man dropped below the sill, and called hoa.r.s.ely through the crash of the falling axes.

"Got the pillar instead of him. There's a streak of light behind me. Well, I'll try for him again."

Hetty emptied the box of cartridges, and, with hands that did not seem to tremble, stood it up before the lamp. Once more the man crouched by the window, a blurred, huddled object with head down on the rifle stock, and there was another streak of flame. Then, the thud of the axes suddenly ceased, and he laughed a little discordant laugh.

"Got him this time. The other one's lit out," he said.

Miss Schuyler shuddered, and clutched at the table, while, though Hetty was very still, she fancied she heard a stifled gasp. The silence was even more disconcerting than the pounding of the axes or the crash of the firing. Flora Schuyler could see the shadowy figures about the window, and just distinguish some of them. The one standing close in front of it, as though disdainful of the risk he ran, was Torrance; the other, who now and then moved lithely, and once rested a rifle on the sill, was Clavering; another, the man who had fired the last shot; but the rest were blurred, formless objects, a little darker than the cedar panelling. Now and then the streak of radiance widened behind the box, and the cold grew numbing as the icy wind flowed in.

Suddenly a voice rose up outside. "You can't keep us out, Torrance. We're bound to get in; but I'll try to hold the boys now if you'll let us have our wounded man, and light out quietly."

Torrance laughed. "You are not making much of a show, and I'm quite ready to do the best I can," he said. "If there's any life in him we want your man for the Sheriff."

Then he turned to the others. "I was 'most forgetting the fellow outside there. We'll hold them off from the window while you bring him in."

It appeared horribly risky, but Torrance spoke with a curious unconcernedness, and Clavering laughed as, signing to two men, he prepared to do his bidding. There was a creaking and rattling, and the great door at one end of the hall swung open, and Flora Schuyler, staring at the darkness, expected to see a rush of shadowy figures out of it. But she saw only the blurred outline of two men who stooped and dragged something in, and then the door swung to again.

They lifted their burden higher. Torrance, approaching the table, took up the lamp, and Miss Schuyler had a pa.s.sing glimpse of a hanging head and a drawn grey face as they tramped past her heavily. She opened her blue lips and closed them again, for she was dazed with cold, and the cry that would have been a relief to her never came. It was several minutes later when Torrance's voice rose from by the stove.

"We'll leave him here in the meanwhile, where he can't freeze," he said.

"Shot right through the shoulder, but there's no great bleeding. The cold would stop it."

Hetty was at her father's side the next moment. "Flo," she said, "we have to do something now."

Torrance waved them back. "The longer that man stops as he is, the better chances he's going to have." He glanced towards the window. "Boys, can you see what they're doing now?"

"Hauling out prairie hay," said Clavering. "They've broken into the store, and from what one fellow shouted they've found the kerosene."

Torrance said nothing whatever, and his silence was significant. Listening with strained attention, Flora Schuyler could hear a faint hum of voices, and now and then vague sounds amidst a patter of hurrying steps. They told her very little, but the tension in the att.i.tude of the half-seen men had its meaning. It was evident that their a.s.sailants purposed to burn them out.

Ten minutes pa.s.sed, as it were interminably, and still n.o.body moved. The voices had grown a little louder, and there was a rattle as though men unseen behind the buildings were dragging up a wagon. Suddenly a rhythmic drumming came softly through it, and Clavering glanced at Torrance.

"Somebody riding this way at a gallop," he said.

The beat of hoofs grew louder. The men without seemed to be running to and fro, and shouting to one another, while those in the hall cl.u.s.tered about the window, reckless of the risk they ran. Standing a little behind them Hetty saw a dim mounted figure sweep out of the waste of snow, and a hoa.r.s.e shout went up. "Hold on! Throw down that rifle! It's Larry Grant."

XIV

TORRANCE'S WARNING

In another moment the horseman pulled up, and sat motionless in his saddle with his head turned towards the house. Hetty could see him silhouetted, shapeless and shadowy in his big fur-coat, against the whiteness of the snow, and the relief she felt betrayed itself in her voice as she turned to Miss Schuyler.

"Yes," she said, "it's Larry. There will be no more trouble now."

Flora Schuyler laughed a little breathless laugh, for though she also felt the confidence her companion evinced, the strain had told on her.

"Of course," she said, "he knew you wanted him. There are men like that."

It was a simple tribute, but Hetty thrilled with pride. Larry was at least consistent, and now, as it had been in the days both looked back upon, he had come when she needed him. She also recognized even then that the fact that he is generally to be found where he is wanted implies a good deal in the favour of any man.

And now half-seen objects moved out from behind barn and stable, and the horseman turned towards them. His voice rose sharply and commandingly.

"What are you doing here?" he demanded.

There was no answer for several moments, and then a man stepped forward gesticulating fiercely as he commenced a tirade that was less than half intelligible. Larry checked him with a lifted hand.

"There's a good deal of that I can't quite understand, and the rest doesn't seem to fit this case," he said, with a laugh that had more effect upon some of those who heard it than a flow of eloquence would have had.

"Boys, we have no use for worrying about the meanness of European kings and folks of that kind. If you have brought any along I'd sooner listen to sensible Americans."

Another man stepped forward, and there was no doubt about his accent, though his tone was deprecatory.

"Well, it just comes to this," he said. "Torrance and the cattle-men have done their best to starve us and freeze us out, and, since he has made it plain that there's no room for both of us, somebody has got to go. Now, we have come a long way and we mean to stay. We're not looking for trouble, but we want our rights."

There was a murmur of encouragement from the rest, but again Larry's laugh had its effect. "Then you're taking a kind of curious way of getting them," he said. "I don't know that trying to burn folks' houses ever did anybody much good, and it's quite likely to bring a regiment of United States cavalry down on you. Mr. Torrance, I fancied I heard firing. Have you anybody hurt inside?"

"One of your men," said Torrance drily. "We hope to pull him round, and let the Sheriff have him."

It was not a conciliatory answer, and came near undoing what Grant had accomplished; but the grim old cattle-baron was not the man to propitiate an enemy. A murmur followed it, and somebody said, "Boys, you hear him!

Bring along that wagon. We're going in."

The form of speech was Western, but the voice was guttural, and when there was a rattle of wheels Grant suddenly changed his tone.