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 shore or water suggested of an encompassing
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 superstitious reliance on occult powers. Whether
through some gift of prevision the Governor anticipated needs and
dangers in his singular life, or whether he was merely a favorite of the
gods 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 passage 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 shore.
"We struck it right," he announced, returning from an examination of the
shore 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 reënforced
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 assembled, 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 passed between them, such a
communication as does not often pass 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 assault, 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 mass. 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 butt.
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.
They advanced again, but Archie was quick to see that they came into the
light reluctantly and precipitated themselves half-heartedly into the
struggle. The Governor, too, was aware of their diminished spirit and
got his men in line for a charge.
"We'll clean 'em up this time, boys!" he called encouragingly.
He took the lead, walking forward calmly, and in a low tone pointing out
the individual that each should attack. The quiet orderliness of the
movement, or perhaps it was a sense of impending defeat, roused Carey to
a greater fury than he had yet shown. As the invaders broke line for the
assault, he leaped at the Governor and swung at him viciously with a
rifle. The Governor sprang aside and the gun slipped from Carey's hands
and clattered against the barricade.
Angered by his failure, and finding his men yielding, Carey abruptly
changed his tactics. He ran back beyond the roaring fire and caught up
another rifle. Leary began circling round the flames in the hope of
grappling with him, but he was too late. Without taking time for aim,
Carey leveled the weapon and fired through the flames.
Archie, struggling with a big woodsman, beat him down and turned as the
shot rang out. The Governor was standing apart, oddly and strangely
alone it seemed to Archie, and he was an eternity falling. He raised
himself slightly, carrying his rifle high above his head, and his face
was uplifted as though in that supreme moment he invoked the stars of
his dreams. Then he pitched forward and lay very still.
Carey's shot seemed to have broken the tacit truce against a resort to
arms. There was a sharp fusillade, followed by a scramble as the
belligerents sought cover. The men who had been left outside now leaped
over the barricade. The appearance of reënforcements either frightened
Carey or the success of his shot had awakened a new rage in his crazed
mind, for he emptied his rifle, firing wildly as he danced with
fantastic step toward the prone figure of the Governor.
Archie, his heart a dead weight in his breast, resolved that the
Governor's last charge to him should be kept. He saw Congdon beyond the
light of the conflagration taking aim at Carey with careful calculation.
Carey must not be killed; no matter what the death toll might be, the
man responsible for it must be taken alive. He raised his hand as a
signal to Congdon not to fire, and waited, hanging back in the shadows,
watching the wild gyrations of the madman. Carey seemed now to be
oblivious to everything that was happening about him as he continued his
dance of triumph. In the midst of this weird performance, suddenly
widening the circumference of his operations, he stumbled. As he reeled
Archie rushed in, gripping his throat and falling upon him.
The breath went out of the man as he struck the ground, and Archie
jumped up and left him to Congdon and Leary.
Perky was kneeling beside the Governor tearing open his shirt which was
already crimson from a fast-flowing wound.
"He's hurt bad; it's the end of him!" muttered the old man helplessly.
"There's nothing to be done here," said Archie, tears coursing down his
cheeks as he felt the Governor's faltering pulse. "We must cross to
Huddleston as quickly as possible."
At Carey's downfall his men fled through the woods, pursued by several
of the Governor's party. Perky seized the rockets and touched one after
the other to the flames of the bonfire. The varicolored lights were
still bright in the sky when the answering signal rose from the bay.
"The tug's moving up," said Perky.
A thousand and one things flitted through Archie's mind. The Governor
had not opened his eyes; his breath came in gasps, at long, painful
intervals. To summon aid through the usual channels would be to invite a
scrutiny of their operations that could only lead to complications with
the law and a resulting publicity that was to be avoided at any hazard.
If a doctor were summoned from Calderville, he would in all likelihood
feel it to be his duty to report to the authorities the fact that he had
a wounded patient. It was hardly fair to call upon the young woman
physician at Heart o' Dreams, and yet this was the only safe move.
While Perky and Leary were fashioning a litter he knelt beside the
Governor, laving his face with water from the brook. He despatched two
messengers to Heart o' Dreams, one through the woods and the other in a
canoe.
They would make the crossing in Carey's launch, while the tug, now
showing its lights close inshore could be sent for the doctor. Two men
had already started for the beach with Carey bound and gagged and he was
to be kept on the tug until some way could be found of disposing of him.
"I'll stay behind; I gotta clean up here; you don't need to know nothin'
about it," said Leary gruffly.
One of Carey's men had been shot and instantly killed and another still
lay unconscious near the barricade from his battering on the head early
in the fight. Leary grimly declared that the others would not be likely
to talk of their night's adventure.
It had been a foolhardy undertaking, with potentialities of exposure and
danger that added fear to the grief in Archie's heart at the Governor's
fall. At best the thing was horrible, and but for the coolness with
which Leary and Perky were meeting the situation Archie would have been
for abandoning any attempt at secrecy.
"It was th' ole Governor's way o' doin' it," said Leary, as though
reading Archie's thoughts. "Ole Governor never made no mistakes. We
ain't agoin' to make no mistakes now, doin' what he tole us not to do.
I'll go back and bury that poor devil and cover up the place. I guess
he's luckier bein' dead anyhow. An' then I'll wake up that other cuss
an' get rid of 'im. All you gotta do is t' ferget about it and take care
o' ole Governor."