"I don't see how I could have done that," Bruce Browning growled,
unpleasantly mystified. "I don't suppose Nell will be very glad to see
me, and probably she will think I came back purposely. But her 'dad,' as
she calls him, will have to show me the way out of this place, or give
me shelter."
He walked toward the door, the soft carpet of grass and leaves muffling
the sound of his footsteps. But at the corner of the cabin he was
brought to as sudden a stop as if struck in the face.
"His name is Frank Merriwell, and I came down to tell you about him!"
These words, given in the voice of Ward Hammond, with the hissing
emphasis of intense hate, reached Bruce Browning like a blow, and stayed
his feet.
"He's pretending to be a summer visitor, and is staying with a crowd at
the cottages on the lakeside, but I overheard him talking last night,
and caught on to the whole thing. He has been sent here by the
government to hunt you down and drag you to jail."
The voice did not come from within the cabin, but from behind it, where,
as Bruce recollected, there was a bench under a shade tree.
Bruce put a hand against the cabin wall as a stay, for he found himself
unexpectedly weak and violently trembling, and listened for the reply.
It came at once in angry, grating tones:
"Then he's one o' them thar cussed revnoo fellers! Dad-burn my hide, ef
he don't wisht he'd never set hoof in these hyar mountings, 'fore he's a
week older! Ef he comes nosin' 'round hyar, I won't hev no more mercy on
him'n I would a she-wolf!"
"Ef you recommember, Bob, thar war one hyar 'bout this time las' year,
too!" another and younger voice put in. "I reckon it air about time ter
do a leetle shootin'!"
"That first one must be Nell's father, for she said his name was Bob,"
Browning reflected, straining his ears to catch every word. "I wonder if
she is in the house and hears that?"
"It's for you to say what you'll do," Ward Hammond purred. "I thought it
my duty to tell you what I had discovered, for I can't forget that
you're related to me, even though we live so differently. I could not
bear the thought of seeing you dragged to jail, without so much as
lifting a finger to prevent it."
"We're 'bleeged to you, Ward," Bob Thornton confessed. "You never did
seem like t'other big-bugs up ter ther village, an' 'tain't the fust
time ye've put yerself out ter gimme a p'inter."
"Blood is thicker than water, you know!" avowed Ward, "I always stand by
those who are related to me. If you go gunning for that fellow, I want
to warn you to keep your eyes open. He's smart, and if you give him half
a chance, he'll strike you before you can strike him."
"I don't doubt he is ez sharp ez a steel trap," Thornton admitted. "The
guv'ment don't send no other kind out ter hunt moonshiners, knowin' ez
how it wouldn't be no sort o' use."
Bob Thornton got on his feet, and Ward Hammond closed the knife with
which he had been whittling.
"Air ye goin' up thar ter-night?" the younger man drawled.
"It air my 'pinion that it'll be better," said Thornton, in a husky
tone. "Ef you hev a thing ter do, do it. Them's my sentiments, an' I
allus acts on 'em. Ef you hev a thing ter do, do it!"
"I do believe there is to be an attempt to murder Frank this very
night," Bruce Browning inwardly groaned, almost afraid to move an eyelid
lest it should bring discovery. "I've got to get back to the cottages
ahead of these fellows, or break my neck trying."
Then he almost groaned aloud as he thought of the dark woods and the
paths that seemed little better than squirrel tracks, where he had
already lost himself, and could hardly hope to do better in a wild race
for the cottages against these miscreants.
Hammond and Thornton moved away. Bruce heard the third man strike a
match, and caught the odor of burning tobacco. Then he noticed that the
moon was rising behind him over a shoulder of the mountain, and that the
night was growing lighter.
"I can get along with that moon," he reflected. "But I'm afraid it's
going to puzzle me to get away from this cabin without detection."
He was on the point of making a dash and trusting to his heels for
safety, for, though he was large-limbed and heavy, the bicycle trip
across the continent had trained him down into fair condition for
running, and the malarial trouble that seemed to have fastened on him
had not yet materially affected his strength. But he was kept from this
by the voice of Nell Thornton, who entered the cabin at this juncture,
singing that old, old song of the backwoods:
"Fair Charlotte lived by the mounting side,
In a wild an' lonely spot,
No dwellin' thar fur ten mile 'roun',
Except her father's cot!"
The voice was not unmusical, but it had the piping twang of the
mountaineers.
"She has been away somewhere, and heard none of that talk," thought
Browning, with a sigh of relief. "I guess her arm was not so badly hurt
by that arrow as I fancied. Anyway, she doesn't seem to be suffering
much now, judging by the way she sings."
He inclined his head toward the cabin wall, expecting to catch the voice
of the younger man from the bench under the tree and Nell's answer to
his words. But he heard only Nell singing of that other mountain girl
who went sleighing to a dance in defiance of parental authority and was
punished for her disobedience by being frozen to death in the sleigh.
Had Browning looked behind him, his thoughts would have been given
another turn, for he was never in more peril in his life than at that
moment.
The man on the bench, chancing to glance around the corner of the cabin
toward the increasing light, had seen Bruce clearly outlined against the
moon's silver rim. His instant thought was that Bruce was the man
against whom he and Bob Thornton had been warned--that here was the
officer of the revenue service, with head pressed close to the cabin
wall, having already spotted Bob Thornton as a moonshiner and tracked
him to his home.
The man was a muscular giant of a fellow, as big and as strong in every
way as Bruce. He was smoking and nursing a heavy stick, almost a club,
which he habitually carried as a cane, but which, in his hands, was a
weapon to fell an ox.
He quickly and stealthily slipped out of his shoes, then stole with
catlike steps around the building, and approached Browning from the
rear.
Step by step he moved forward, as silent as a shadow and as merciless as
a red Indian. His face, revealed by the faint moonlight, was distorted
with rage and hate, and his grip on the deadly club was so tense that
the muscles on his right arm stood out in a knotted mass under the
sleeve of his thin, cotton shirt.
Bruce still stood, with head inclined toward the cabin wall, listening
for the words he was not to hear, wholly unaware of his peril.
Lifting himself slowly erect, the man poised the club for a brief
instant, then brought it down with an inarticulate cry.
That cry saved Bruce's life, but it did not ward off the terrible blow.
Bruce straightened his head and tried to leap back, instinctively
throwing up an arm as a shield.
But the club descended, beating down the arm and striking the head a
glancing blow, under which Bruce sank down with a hollow groan.
The blow, the groan, the man's fierce curse as Browning fell, reached
the ears of Nell Thornton, stilling the words of the song.
She was out of the cabin in a flash.
"What hev ye done, Sam Turner?" she demanded, as she hurried around the
corner of the cabin, and saw the man standing over the senseless form,
with the murderous club still in his hands. "Who hev ye killed, hyar,
I'd like ter know?"
"Shet yer yawp, Nell Thornton, an' go back inter the house!" Turner
harshly commanded. "Go back inter the house, whar ye belong, stiddy
botherin' with bizness that don't consarn ye!"
"But it do consarn me, ef murder is bein' done!" she asserted.
Then her voice rose in a shriek, as she bent over Browning, and
recognized in him the youth who had been so kind to her that afternoon.
Browning lay as he had fallen, without movement or sign of life.
"Ye've killed him, Sam Turner!" she cried, facing the mountaineer, with
white face and flashing eyes. "Ye've killed him!"
"That thar's what I meant ter do!" Turner declared. "An' I'll kill ever'
other revnoo spy that the guv'ment sends down hyar ter 'rest me an' yer
dad!"
Nell turned from him, with hot, dry eyes and choking words, and again
bent over Browning, even as he had bent over her when she lay in a faint
in the wild mountain path.
Then she grasped him by the shoulders and tried to lift him.
"Help me ter git him inter the cabin!" she wildly commanded. "He ain't
no revnoo, Sam Turner! If he's dead, you'll hatter answer fur killin' a
man that never harmed ye. You'll hatter answer fur it 'fore God, and
that'll be wuss'n the jedge at the co'tehouse down in the valley. Holp
me ter git him inter the cabin, I tell ye!"
She gave another surging lift at the shoulders, and Bruce groaned.
Sam Turner raised the club again.
"Put that down!" she shrieked, flying at him with the ferocity of an
enraged panther.
Turner staggered back under the force of her rush, and she tore the club
from his hands and sent it whirling far out into the bushes.
"If ye won't holp me, I'll drag him in myself," she declared, again
seeking to lift Browning by the shoulders.
There was another groan from Browning's lips, and then Sam Turner, moved
by curiosity rather than pity, consented to assist Nell in getting the
unfortunate lad into the house.
By the light of the kerosene lamp, Turner inspected Bruce's injuries,
while Nell stood by, with clasped hands, in an agony of suspense.
She broke the silence.
"'Fore God, Sam Turner, I tell ye you hev made a mistake! That man hev
never hed nuthin ter do with the revnoo. He belongs up ter the village
with them thar summer folks. It's bloody murder ef ye hev killed him!"
"What do you know 'bout him?" Turner asked, suspiciously, irritated by
her reproof. "I hev never said he didn't b'long up ter the village. I
reckon, now, you must hev thought 'cause he air a revnoo spy that he'd
be goin' 'roun' through the mountings a-hollerin' out his bizness ter
the owls. I reckon you must hev thought that. Ef he ain't a revnoo, why
war he standin' with his head agin' the cabin a-listenin'?"
Browning groaned again, and moved.
"He ain't so much killed ez he mout be!" Turner declared. "That club
didn't ketch him squar'. He dodged, an' his shoulder got most o' it."
"You're not goin' ter strike him ag'in!" Nell screamed, clutching Turner
by the arm.
"Who said ez how I war goin' ter?" he growled, shaking her off. "Yer ole
dad'll do that quick ernuff when he gits back. He's out now a-aimin' an'
a-contrivin' fer a safe plan ter git at this feller, an' when he gits
back, an' finds that I've got him hyar, he'll be plum tickled out o' one
fit inter fifty!"
He stooped toward Bruce.
"What air you a-goin' ter do to him, Sam Turner?" Nell demanded, her
eyes blazing with a dangerous light.
Turner caught her and hurled her from him.
"Will you quit a-naggin' of me, Nell Thornton? I'm a-goin' ter drag him
inter t'other room, an' tie him up fer yer ole dad ter look at when he
gits back. I 'low I'll hev ter tell him, too, that you've acted clean
crazy over the feller."
There was no answer to this fling, and Turner, lifting Bruce by the
shoulders, dragged him into the adjoining room, the only remaining room
of the cabin, with the exception of the garret.
When he had done this, he hunted up a piece of rope, with which he
securely tied Browning's hands and feet. Then he deliberately relighted
his pipe, took down a long rifle from its rack, and, seating himself in
the doorway in a rude, hickory-bottomed chair, he rested the rifle
across his knees, and stared moodily off over the ridges, on which the
moonlight now fell with silvery radiance.