"To help Ross. Here!" She thrust the handle of a smaller weapon into Lee's
hand. "Ed Wetherford's girl ought to be able to take care of herself. Come
on!"
With a most unheroic horror benumbing her limbs, Lee followed her mother
through the hall. The sound of shouts and the trampling of feet could be
heard, and she came out into the restaurant just in time to photograph
upon her brain a scene whose significance was at once apparent. On a chair
between his two prisoners, and confronting Ballard at the head of a crowd
of frenzied villains, stood the ranger, a gleaming weapon in his hand, a
look of resolution on his face.
What he had said, or what he intended to do, she did not learn, for her
mother rushed at the invaders with the mad bravery of a she-bear. "Get out
of here!" she snarled, thrusting her revolver into the very mouth of the
leader.
They all fell back in astonishment and fear.
Ross leaped to her side. "Leave them to me!" he said. "I'll clear the
room."
"Not on your life! This is my house. I have the right to smash the fools."
And she beat them over the heads with her pistol-barrel.
Recognizing that she was minded to kill, they retreated over the
threshold, and Ross, drawing the door close behind them, turned to find
Lee Virginia confronting Edwards, who had attempted to escape into the
kitchen. The girl's face was white, but the eye of her revolver stared
straight and true into her prisoner's face.
With a bound Ross seized him and flung him against the wall. "Get back
there!" he shouted. "You must take your medicine with your boss."
The old fellow hurriedly replaced his ragged hat, and, folding his arms,
sank back into his chair with bowed head, while Lize turned upon Joe
Gregg. "What the devil did you go into this kind of deal for? You knew
what the game laws was, didn't you? Your old dad is all for State
regulation, and here you are breaking a State law. Why don't you stand up
for the code like a sport?"
Joe, who had been boasting of the smiles he had drawn from Lee, did not
relish this tongue-lashing from her mother, but, assuming a careless air,
he said, "I'm all out of smokes; get me a box, that's a good old soul."
Lize regarded him with the expression of one nonplussed. "You impudent
little cub!" she exclaimed. "What you need is a booting!"
The ranger addressed himself to Lee. "I want to thank you for a very
opportune intervention. I didn't know you could handle a gun so neatly."
She flushed with pleasure. "Oh yes, I can shoot. My father taught me when
I was only six years old."
As she spoke, Ross caught the man Edwards studying them with furtive
glance, but, upon being observed, he resumed his crouching attitude, which
concealed his face beneath the rim of his weather-worn hat. It was evident
that he was afraid of being recognized. He had the slinking air of the
convict, and his form, so despairing in its lax lines, appealed to Lee
with even greater poignancy than his face. "I'm sorry," she said to him,
"but it was my duty to help Mr. Cavanagh."
He glanced up with a quick sidewise slant. "That's all right, miss; I
should have had sense enough to keep out of this business." He spoke with
difficulty, and his voice was hoarse with emotion.
Lize turned to Lee. "The Doc said 'no liquor,' but I guess here's where I
draw one--I feel faint."
Ross hurried to her side, while young Gregg tendered a handsome flask.
"Here's something."
Lize put it away. "Not from you. Just reach under my desk, Ross; you'll
find some brandy there. That's it," she called, as he produced a bottle.
Clutching it eagerly, she added: "They say it's poison, but it's my meat
to-night."
She was, in truth, very pale, and her hands were trembling in a weakness
that went to her daughter's heart. Lee admired her bravery, her manlike
readiness of action, but her words, her manner (now that the stress of the
battle was over), hurt and shamed her. Little remained of the woman in
Lize, and the old sheep-herder eyed her with furtive curiosity.
"I was afraid you'd shoot," Lize explained to Ross, "and I didn't want you
to muss up your hands on the dirty loafers. I had the right to kill; they
were trespassers, and I'd 'a' done it, too."
"I don't think they intended to actually assault me," he said, "but it's a
bit discouraging to find the town so indifferent over both the breaking of
the laws and the doings of a drunken mob. I'm afraid the most of them are
a long way from law-abiding people yet."
Joe, who did not like the position in which he stood as respecting Lee,
here made an offer of aid. "I don't suppose my word is any good now, but
if you'll let me do it I'll go out and round up Judge Higley. I think I
know where he is."
To this Lize objected. "You can't do that, Ross; you better hold the fort
right here till morning."
Lee was rather sorry, too, for young Gregg, who bore his buffeting with
the imperturbable face of the heroes of his class. He had gone into this
enterprise with much the same spirit in which he had stolen gates and
misplaced signs during his brief college career, and he was now disposed
(in the presence of a pretty girl) to carry it out with undiminished
impudence. "It only means a fine, anyway," he assured himself.
Cavanagh did not trust Gregg, either, and as this was the first time he
had been called upon to arrest men for killing game out of season, he
could not afford to fail of any precaution. Tired and sleepy as he was, he
must remain on guard. "But you and your daughter must go to bed at once,"
he urged.
Lize, under the spur of her dram, talked on with bitter boldness. "I'm
going to get out o' this town as soon as I can sell. I won't live in it a
minute longer than I have to. It used to have men into it; now they're
only hobos. It's neither the old time nor the new; it's just a betwixt and
between, with a lot o' young cubs like Joe Gregg pretendin' to be tough. I
never thought I'd be sighin' for horse-cars, but these rowdy chumps like
Neill Ballard give me a pain. Not one of 'em has sand enough to pull a gun
in the open, but they'd plug you from a dark alley or fire out of a crowd.
It was different in the old days. I've seen men walk out into that street,
face each other, and open fire quiet as molasses. But now it's all talk
and blow. The _men_ have all grown old or got out."
To this Gregg listened with expressionless visage, his eyes dreamily fixed
on Lee's face; but his companion, the old herder, seemed to palpitate with
shame and fear. And Ross had the feeling at the moment that in this
ragged, unkempt old hobo was the skeleton of one of the old-time heroes.
He was wasted with drink and worn by wind and rain, but he was very far
from being commonplace. "Here they come again!" called Lize, as the hurry
of feet along the walk threatened another attack. Ross Cavanagh again drew
his revolver and stood at guard, and Lize recovering her own weapon took a
place by his side.
With the strength of a bear the new assailant shook the bolted door. "Let
me in!" he roared.
"Go to hell!" replied Lize, calmly.
"It's dad!" called young Gregg. "Go away, you chump."
"Let me in or I'll smash this door!" retorted Gregg.
"You smash that door, old Bullfrog," announced Lize, "and I'll carry one
of your lungs away. I know your howl--it don't scare me. I've stood off
one whole mob to-night, and I reckon I'm good for you. If you want to get
in here you hunt up the judge of this town and the constable."