It is not wonderful, all things considered, that the citizens of
Henniker, together with its fortuitous and floating population, should
have been moved to such lengths as to resolve upon lynching Vipan.
Indeed, it would have been surprising had matters turned out otherwise.
Here was a man they very much more than suspected of being in league
with their barbarous and dreaded foes, at a time when the frontier was
almost in a state of war. A man of known daring and unscrupulousness,
and whom they knew to have been present--the only white man--at an
important council, involving issues of peace or war; to have taken part
in its deliberations, going even so far as to advise the chiefs, and
that, if report were to be believed, by no means in the direction of
peaceful results. Several of their friends and neighbours had been
murdered and scalped, those who had escaped a similar fate being obliged
to carry on their mining or other operations rifle in hand, even if not
forced to quit altogether. Meanwhile, this man, it was well known,
could move about the country perfectly unmolested, visiting the Indian
encampments at will--indeed, in one instance he was known to have
witnessed a scalp-dance, wherein the prime attraction of the
entertainment lay in the exhibition of the scalps recently torn from the
heads of two of their murdered comrades.
And then he was an alien, which was the crowning point of the whole
offence; and the good citizens of Henniker were virtuously stirred that
a foreigner--an Englishman--should, while dwelling on their free and
sacred soil, presume to be on friendly terms with its dispossessed and
original owners; even as here and there in Great Britain may still be
found a misguided and hard-headed Tory moved to honest indignation at
the prospect of Fenians and Invincibles and National Leaguers stirred up
to dynamite and murder by Irish-American agents and American dollars.
But how came it that so much should be known of Vipan's movements,
seeing that he himself was almost the only white man who could safely
penetrate the semi-hostile country or venture among the roving bands who
even then were raiding and murdering at their own sweet will? Well,
human nature is rather alike all the world over. Gossip on that wild
Western frontier was circulated through very much the same channels as,
say, at Lant with Lant-Hanger in the county of Brackenshire--through the
agency of the squaws to wit. Some of the miners owned red spouses,
others, again, were not above open admiration for the savage beauties--
and, presto!--sooner or later the gossip of the Indian villages leaked
out.
Peering through the chinks, the besieged could descry a sea of
threatening faces, savagely hideous in the red torchlight. Prominent
among these was a man who held a noosed cord. Hither and thither he
moved, stirring up the crowd, his sinister features distorted with
malicious rage. Hatred, envy, disappointed greed, all were depicted
there, as with blood-curdling threats the mob clamoured for the object
of its resentment.
Suddenly a clatter of approaching hoofs became audible alike to
besiegers and besieged. The crowd paused aghast, the first thought
being that of an Indian attack. Then a score of horsemen darted into
the light, and a ringing voice was heard inquiring--
"Say, boys, what in thunder's all this muss?"
"That's the sheriff," said Smokestack Bill, coolly, lowering his
revolver. "We're out of this fix, anyhow."
A roar was the answer.
"The white Injun! The pizen white Injun! We're going to lynch him."
"I guess not," was the reply. "Not while Nat Hardroper's sheriff of
Henniker City. When it comes to reckoning with that invaluable officer,
Judge Lynch'll have to take a back seat. Eh, boys?" turning to his
well-armed followers, a score of cowboys and well-disposed citizens,
whom he had prudently collected in haste on receiving the first
intimation of a riot.
"That's so, sheriff," was the prompt reply.
"Say, Dan Harper," called out the sheriff, "Judge Lynch's sittin' in the
State you've just left. Why not go and talk to him there?"
The face of the fellow named blanched at this allusion.
Meanwhile the crowd, composed mainly as it was of ruffians and bullies,
began to show a disposition to slink off, in the presence of these
well-armed and determined representatives of law and order.
"Never mind, boys," shouted someone. "We'll plant him full of lead yet.
Now let's git."
"How do, sheriff?" said the scout, calmly stepping forth with extended
hand. "Guess you've raised the siege on us right slick in the nick of
time."
"How do, Bill? How do, colonel?" to Vipan. "Now you come right along
to my log and we'll talk."
"Hold hard, friends," objected Vipan. "We've got to drink first.
Murphy, bring out the juice."
"Whurroo, sheriff darlint," chuckled the saloon-keeper. "Whurroo! but
it's purty shootin' there's bin around here afure you came. Be jabers!
and thur'll be a big inquist to-morrow, and the power of the `crame' 'll
be on hand for the jewry, I reckon. Bedad! and whur's that shuck-faced
omadhaun?" he added, gazing at the corner. For Bitter Rube, having
recovered his confused senses, had profited by the confusion to steal
away unperceived.
"Now, boys, mind me," said Nat Hardroper to Vipan and the scout, after a
substantial supper a few hours later. "This same Henniker City's a
powerful survigerous place. I've got you out of one fix, but I can't go
on getting you out of fixes. It's too big a contract on one man's
hands, I want you to see. Now, a power of those chirruping roarers'll
be on your trail first thing you show your noses out of this shebang.
If I warn't sheriff this'd be my advice--to take your hosses this very
night and git. But it ain't my advice, because, you see, I _am_
sheriff, and you're under my charge. No, no; it ain't my advice."
Save for the faintest possible wink, he looked them straight in the
face, as solemn as an owl. Vipan burst into a roar of laughter.
"Right you are, Nat. It's not your advice--we'll remember that."
"Well, good-night, boys; good-night."
They shook hands heartily. But our two friends did not go to bed; they
went to the stable. By daybreak they had put a considerable number of
miles between Henniker City and themselves.