TERROR IN THE MOUNTAINS
Fear drove Chepstow headlong for the dugout. Mason's words, his tone
and manner, had served to excite him to a pitch closely bordering upon
absolute terror. What of Betty? Over and over again he asked himself
what might not happen to her, left alone at the mercy of these savages?
What if, baulked of their prey, they turned to loot and wreck his hut?
It was more than possible. To his fear-stricken imagination it was
inevitable. His gorge rose and he sickened at the thought, and he raced
through the fog to the girl's help.
The self-torture he suffered in those weary minutes was exquisite. He
railed at his own criminal folly in letting her leave his side. He
reviled Mason and his wild schemes. Dave and his interests were
banished from his mind. The well-being of Malkern, of the mills, of
anybody in the world but the helpless girl, mattered not at all to him.
It was Betty--of Betty alone he thought.
An innocent girl in the hands of such ruthless brutes as these
strikers--what could she do? It was a maddening thought. He prayed to
Heaven as he went, that he might be in time, and his prayers rang with
a fervor such as they never possessed in his vocation as a churchman.
And this mood alternated with another, which was its direct antithesis.
The vicious thoughts of a man roused to battle ran through his brain in
a fiery torrent. His whole outlook upon life underwent a change. All
the kindly impulses of his heart, all the teachings of his church, all
his best Christian beliefs, fell from him, and left him the naked,
passionate man. Churchman, good Christian he undoubtedly was, but,
before all things, he was a man; and just now a man in fighting mood.
It probably took him less than twenty minutes to make the return
journey, yet it seemed to him hours--he certainly endured hours of
mental anguish. But at last it ended with almost ludicrous abruptness.
In the obscurity of the fog he was brought to a halt by impact with the
walls of the dugout.
He recovered himself and stood for a moment listening. There was no
sound of any one within, nor was there any sign of the strikers. He
moved round to the door; a beam of light shone beneath it. He breathed
more freely. Then, to his dismay, at his first touch, the door swung
open. His fears leapt again, he dreaded what that open door might
disclose. Then, in the midst of his fears, a cry of relief and joy
broke from him.
"Thank God, you're safe!" he exclaimed, as he rushed into the room.
Betty looked up from the work in her lap. She was seated beside the
box-stove sewing. Her calmness was in flat contrast to her uncle's
excited state. She smiled gently, and her soft eyes had in them a
questioning humor that had a steadying effect upon the man.
"Safe? Why, dear, of course I'm safe," she said. "But--I was a little
anxious about you. You were so long getting back. Did Bob Mason get
safely away?"
Chepstow laughed.
"Yes, oh yes. _He_ got away safely."
"He?"
The work lay in Betty's lap, and her fingers had become idle.
"Yes. But we captured one of the strikers."
The parson suddenly turned to the door and barred it securely. Then, as
he went on, he crossed to the windows, and began to barricade them.
"Yes, we had a busy time. They were hard on his heels when he pulled up
for me. We nailed the foremost. He jumped on the buckboard and almost
strangled Mason. I jumped on it too, and--and almost strangled him."
He laughed harshly. His blood was still up. Betty bent over her work
and her expressive face was hidden.
"Who was he? I mean your prisoner. Did you recognize him, or was he a
new hand?"
Chepstow's laugh abruptly died out. He had suddenly remembered who his
prisoner was; and he tried to ignore the question.
"Oh, yes, we recognized him. But," he went on hurriedly, "we must get
some supper. I think we are in for a busy time."
But Betty was not so easily put off. Besides, her curiosity was roused
by her uncle's evident desire to avoid the subject.
"Who was he?" she demanded again.
There was no escape, and the man knew it. Betty could be very
persistent.
"Eh? Oh, I'm afraid it was Jim--Jim Truscott," he said reluctantly.
Betty rose from her chair without a word. She stirred the fire in the
cook-stove, and began to prepare a supper of bacon and potatoes and
tea, while her uncle went on with his task of securing the windows. It
was the latter who finally broke the silence.
"Has any one--has anybody been here?" he asked awkwardly.
Betty did not look up from her work.
"Two men paid me a visit," she said easily. "One asked for you. He
seemed angry. I--I told him you had gone over to the sick camp--that
you were coming back to supper. He laughed--fiercely. He said if you
didn't come back I'd find myself up against it. Then he hurried
off--and I was glad."
"And the other?"
Chepstow's work was finished. He had crossed over and was standing
beside the cook-stove. His question came with an undercurrent of
fierceness that Betty was unused to, but she smiled up into his face.
"The other? I think he had been drinking. He was one of those two I met
in the woods. He asked me why I hadn't taken his warning. I told him I
was considering it. He leered at me and said it was too late, and
assured me I must take the consequences. Then he--tried to kiss me. It
was rather funny."
"Funny? Great Heavens! And you----"
Betty's smile broadened as she pointed to a heavy revolver lying in the
chair she had just vacated.
"I didn't have any trouble. I told him there were five barrels in that,
all loaded, and each barrel said he'd better get out."
"Did--did he go?"
Chepstow could scarcely control his fury. But Betty answered him in a
quiet determined manner.
"Not until I had emptied one of them," she said. Then with a rueful
smile she added, "But it went very wide of its mark."
Her uncle tried to laugh, but the result was little better than a
furious snort.
"Why did you leave the door open?" he inquired a moment later.
"Well, you were out. You might have returned in--in a hurry and---- But
sit down, uncle dear, food's ready."
The man sat down and Betty stood by to supply him with all he needed.
Then he noticed she had only prepared food for one.
"Why, child, what about you?" he demanded kindly.
"I've had some biscuits and tea, before you came in. I'm not hungry.
Now don't bother about it, dear. Yes, I am quite well." She shook her
head and smiled at him as he attempted to interrupt her, but the smile
was a mere cloak to her real feelings. She had eaten before he came in,
as she said. But if she hadn't she could have eaten nothing now. Her
mind was swept with a hot tide of anxious thought. She had a thousand
and one questions unanswered, and she knew it would be useless putting
any one of them to her kindly, impetuous uncle. He was to her the
gentlest of guardians, but quite impossible as a confidant for her
woman's fears, her woman's passionate desire to help the man she loved.
He was staunch and brave, and in what might lay before them she could
have no better companion, no better champion, but where the subtleties
of her woman's feelings were concerned there could be no confidence in
him.
She watched him eat in silence, and, presently, when he looked up at
her, her soft brown eyes were lit by an almost maternal regard for him.
He had no understanding of that look, and Betty knew it, otherwise it
would not have been there.
"I can't understand it all," he said. "Jim is a worse--a worse rascal
than I thought. I believe he's not only in this strike, but one of the
organizers. Why? That's what I can't make out. Is it mischief--wanton
mischief? Is it jealousy of Dave's success? It's a puzzle I can't solve
anyhow. After all his protestations to me the thing's inconceivable.
It's enough to destroy all one's belief in human nature."
"Or strengthen it."
"Eh?"
"It is only natural for people to err," Betty said seriously. "And
having erred it is human nature, whatever our motives, however good our
intentions, to find that the mire into which we have fallen sucks hard.
It is more often than not the floundering to save ourselves that drives
us deeper into it. Poor Jim. He needs our pity and help, just as we so
often need help."
Her uncle stared into the grave young face. His astonishment kept him
silent for a moment. He pushed impatiently away from the table. But it
was not until Betty had moved back to her chair at the stove that he
found words to express himself. He was angry, quite angry with her. It
was not that he was really unchristian, but when he thought of all that
this strike meant, he felt that sympathy for the man who was possibly
the cause of it was entirely out of place.
"Truscott needs none of your pity, Betty," he said sharply. "If pity be
needed it is surely for those whom one man's mischief will harm. Do you
know what this strike means, child? Before it reaches the outside of
these camps it will turn a tide of vice loose upon the men themselves.
They will drink, gamble. They will quarrel and fight. And when such men
fight it more often than not results in some terrible tragedy. Then,
like some malignant cuttlefish, this strike will grope its crushing
feelers out from here, its lair, seeking prey on which to fix its
sucking tentacles. They will reach Malkern, and work will be paralyzed.
That means ruin to more than half the villagers who depend upon their
weekly wage. It goes further than that. The mills will shut down. And
if the mills shut, good-bye to all trade in Malkern. It means ruin for
everybody. It means the wrecking of all Dave's hopes--hopes which have
for their object the welfare of the people of our valley. It is a piece
of rascality that nothing can justify. Jim Truscott does not need our
pity. It is the penitentiary he needs. Betty, I'm--I'm----"
But Betty looked up with passionate, glowing eyes from the work she had
resumed.
"Do you think I don't know what it means, uncle?" she demanded, with a
depth of feeling that silenced him instantly. "Do you think because I
pity poor Jim that I do not understand the enormity of his wickedness
in this matter? Have I spent the best part of my life in our valley
carrying on the work that has fallen to my share--work that has been my
joy and happiness to do--without understanding the cruelty which this
strike means to our people, those who are powerless to help themselves
against it? Do you think I don't understand what it means to Dave? Oh,
uncle, if you but knew," she went on reproachfully. "I know it means
practically the end of all things for Dave if his contract fails. I
know that he is all out for the result. That his resources are even now
taxed to their uttermost limit, and that only the smooth running of the
work can save him from a disaster that will involve us all. If I had a
man's strength there is nothing I would not do to serve him. If my two
hands, if my brain could assist him in the smallest degree, he would
not need to ask for them. They are his--his!" she cried, with a passion
that thrilled the listening man. "You are angry with me because I feel
sorry for an erring man. I _am_ sorry for him. Yet should evil come to
our valley--to Dave--through his work, no wildcat would show him less
mercy than I. Oh, why am I not a man with two strong hands?" she cried
despairingly. "Why am I condemned to be a useless burden to those I
love? Oh, Dave, Dave," she cried with a sudden self-abandonment, so
passionate, so overwhelming that it alarmed her uncle, "why can't I
help you? Why can't I stand beside you and share in your battles with
these two hands?" She held out her arms, in a gesture of appeal. Then
they dropped to her side. In a moment she turned almost fiercely upon
her uncle, swept on by a tide of feeling long pent up behind the
barrier of her woman's reserve, but now no longer possible of
restraint. "I love him! I love him! I know! You are ashamed for me! I
can see it in your face! You think me unwomanly! You think I have
outraged the conventions which hem our sex in! And what if I have? I
don't care! I care for nothing and no one but him! He is the world to
me--the whole, wide world. I love him so I would give my life for him.
Oh, uncle, I love him, and I am powerless to help him."
She sank into her chair, and buried her face in her hands. Blame,
displeasure, contempt, nothing mattered. The woman was stirred, let
loose; the calm strength which was so great a part of her character,
had been swept aside by her passion, which saw only the hopelessness
with which this strike confronted the man she loved.
Chepstow watched her for some moments. He was no longer alarmed. His
heart ached for her, and he wanted to comfort her. But it was not easy
for him. At last he moved close to her side, and laid a hand upon her
bowed head. The action was full of a tender, even reverential sympathy.
And it was that, more than his words, which helped to comfort the
woman's stricken heart.
"You're a good child, Betty," he said awkwardly. "And--and I'm glad you
love him. Dave will win out. Don't you fear. It is the difficulties he
has had to face that have made him the man he is. Remember Mason has
got away, and---- What's that?"
Something crashed against the door and dropped to the ground outside.
Though the exclamation had broken from the man he needed no answer. It
was a stone. A stone hurled with vicious force.
Betty sat up. Her face had suddenly returned to its usual calm. She
looked up into her uncle's eyes, and saw that the light of battle had
been rekindled there. Her own eyes brightened. She, too, realized that
battle was imminent. They were two against hundreds. Her spirit warmed.
Her recent hopelessness passed and she sprang to her feet.
"The cowards!" she cried.
The man only laughed.