TRAPPED
Swift and sudden as was the appearance of that murderous figure, it was
little quicker than the movements of Douglas and Marion.
For one fleeting second the pair stood as if petrified. For the same
time Snake halted as if blinded. Coming from the outer dark, he had
sprung straight into the brightest beam of the gas-lamp, which happened
to be centered on the doorway. The shock to his optic nerves was too
great to be overcome at once even by the instinctive narrowing of his
lids. He wavered aside, trying to dodge the sight-searing ray without
taking his gaze from the man he hated and the girl he coveted.
Simultaneously the trapped pair leaped.
Douglas lunged toward his own gun--and tripped over the forgotten low
chair. Marion sprang between him and the menacing muzzles which jerked
to cover him anew.
“Don’t you!” she screamed. “Don’t you dast shoot!”
The clatter of the overturned chair and the thump of a solid blow
terminated her words. Douglas, unable to regain his balance, had
pitched headlong against the stove. The impact dazed him. He fumbled,
strove to rise on legs that seemed useless.
Snake’s venomous face split in a lethal grin. With a hissing laugh he
sidestepped, jumped forward, snapped the gun-stock to his shoulder.
CRASH!
Buckshot cannoned toward the groggy man reeling up from the floor.
But the frightful charge of leaden death missed. With the muzzle less
than six feet from its victim--it missed. It smashed through a window.
The bellowing shock of the discharge roared out into the silent night,
reverberating far along the crag-girt Traps.
Marion had leaped again. With the lightning speed of a maddened
catamount she had struck at the gun, knocking it aside just as the
hammer fell. Now she was gripping the twin barrels in both her strong
young hands, wrenching and yanking in a furious effort to wrest the
weapon from its owner.
“Leggo!” snarled Snake. “Leggo, ye red cat!”
“I won’t--I got you now--Douglas!--Git him!”
She strained in frenzy, jerking, twisting--but ever keeping the muzzles
pointed upward.
Stunned anew by the concussion so near his head, Douglas did not hear
her panted command. Nor did his numbed brain turn him of his own accord
toward his shotgun. Though he had carried that weapon habitually of
late, he was not a born gun-fighter; and now, in his foggy condition,
he acted only by primitive instinct. But he was acting. He had regained
his feet, seizing the upturned chair as he rose; and now he was
lurching forward, poising the chair for a crushing down-blow.
With a louder snarl Snake heaved himself backward, dodging away from
the oncoming menace and swinging up his gun with all his power,
striving to break the girl’s hold. But she hung on. Lifted clear of
the floor, still she hung on. And Douglas, his senses quickening every
instant, pressed in faster and harder.
“Got you!” Marion gasped. “Right into the house--where you--kilt my
pop----”
_Smash!_
Glass shattered. Through the side window licked a length of dull steel.
Douglas almost collided with it. He halted. It was another gun-barrel.
And it covered Snake and Marion.
“Marry!” crackled a harsh voice. “Git ’way! He’s mine!”
Behind the cocked hammers of the gun glimmered a white face: a drawn,
haggard face dominated by hollow eyes in which gleamed cold ferocity.
“Git ’way! Git back! Leggo that ’ere gun! I’m a-shootin’!” came the
ice-edged voice again. But the commands ended in a cough, followed by a
choked moan of pain. The muzzles wavered. Then they steadied again.
That voice, that face, that gun, seemed to freeze Snake. Fear shot
athwart his contorted visage. His arms turned limp. Marion, feet again
on the floor, hands still desperately clutching the steel, flashed
a glance at the window, another at Snake--and tore the gun from his
relaxing fingers. An instant too late he snatched for it. It was gone
from him, and its muzzles--one impotent, but the other deadly--were
four feet away, yawning at his face.
“Good gal!” A freezing chuckle sounded at the shattered frame. “Don’t
ye kill him less’n he jumps--he’s mine! I got to talk to him a minute
’r so, an’ then---- Hamp, shove up the winder! I’m a-comin’ in.”
“Can’t, Steve,” Douglas replied mechanically. “Never could get this
sash up. It’s warped solid. Come around.”
The fierce face hung in the dimness a moment longer before it moved.
Then, reluctantly: “Awright, if I gotta I gotta. But ye watch him
close! He’s a snake--if he moves bust him!”
As the barrel withdrew Snake darted desperate glances at the pair.
He saw a tense, ready girl, flame-haired, flame-eyed, holding him at
bay like an angel of vengeance; a grim-jawed man who once before had
knocked him senseless, who had been relentlessly trailing him for many
days, who now stood alert and all too eager to avenge three attempts on
his life. But if he could only dodge that one barrel and dive through
the window----
“Don’t try it!” the hard voice of Hammerless Hampton warned. “If she
should miss you I wouldn’t! I’m only holding off because you’re Steve’s
meat. Make one little move and----”
The threat of the hovering chair was all too plain.
Snake licked his thin lips, shot a look doorward--then shrank back
as if trying to merge himself with the unyielding wall. A moment ago
he had plumbed the hot eyes of Wrath. Now he looked into the stony
countenance of Revenge.
Steve was in the room. Steve, born like a wolf, wild as a wolf, now
was merciless as a wolf. Through his matted black hair his cavernous
eyes glared in concentrated hate; across his bristle-bearded mouth
stretched a fang-toothed grin; in his creeping step was the stiffness
of a timber-wolf about to leap and rend. At his hip hung the battered
double gun of dead Nigger Nat, hammers back like the heads of striking
serpents, triggers tense under wasted fingers, muzzles slipping with
nerve-shattering slowness toward the vitals of the cornered betrayer
and murderer. So appalling was the utter ferocity of that shambling
figure that Marion’s face paled and her weapon sank, while even Douglas
felt ice crawl down his spine.
“Three year!” the avenger rasped through his teeth. “Three year I done
for ye! I’d ’a’ died, only I swored I’d git ye, Snake--I’d git ye
’spite o’ bars an’ walls an’ guards an’ all hell! An’ now’s yer time to
pay! Ye’re gone!”
Snake’s face writhed again. Desperately he strove to avert his doom.
“Steve, ye’re wrong! I tried to git ye clear----”
“Shet up! Ye dirty liar! Ye----”
“But wait, for Gawd’s sakes! Gimme a chance to tell ye! Ye was drunk
that night--ye was wild--crazy--I couldn’t handle ye. Ye got ’way from
me. Fust I knowed, the place was a-burnin’ an’ ye a-shootin’--I resked
my own life a-tryin’ to git ye ’way--don’t ye mind me a-haulin’ ye down
the road an’ the Bumps a-shootin’ after us an’ how ye tumbled sudden?
I thought they’d hit ye, kilt ye, an’ I had to look out for myself
then. Mebbe ye don’t ’member--ye was so drunk----”
“Ye lie! I was drunk--ye got me drunk a-purpose--but I can ’member
better’n ye think I can. Drinkin’ never makes me crazy: it makes me
sleepy: but a thing that happens when I’m drunk stays clear into my
head when I’m sober ag’in. Ye can’t wiggle out, ye p’ison varmint! I’m
a-shootin’ right quick. But fust ye got to tell me how ye kilt Nat.
Wha’d ye do to him? Speak up, blast ye!”
“I never!” Snake’s voice rose to a scream. “I never! Last I see o’ Nat
that night he was a-trompin’ round the road crazy drunk. I was Nat’s
friend--I been your friend--I’m here now ’cause I’m friends with all
the Oakses! Lookit that feller Hampton! He’s yer wust enemy! He set the
’tectives onto ye--he tolled Marry into this ’ere house to-night--he’s
a-gittin’ her ’way from ye--he’s doin’ ye dirt to every turn!”
The desperate play to distract Steve’s attention almost succeeded. It
was a diabolical stroke at the hard-bitten youth’s innate distrust of
outsiders and at his jealousy. So unexpected was it that for an instant
Douglas and Marion stood staring blankly; and Steve, brain aflame,
nearly turned to confront them. Had he done so, Snake could have
jumped, shoved him toward Marion, and sprung out of the door before
either of the guns--or the chair, which Douglas had lowered--could stop
him.
But he did not quite succeed. Steve’s eyes turned, but the deadly
muzzles did not swing more than an inch. Then, just as a sinuous quiver
of forthcoming action ran through Snake, eyes and muzzles darted back
at him. Simultaneously Douglas stepped forward with fists clenched and
Marion with gun lifted.
“Hold up a minute, Steve,” Douglas requested ominously. “I owe him one
for that. You, Snake! Step out and put up your hands!”
“Don’t you!” the girl rebuked him. “He’s a-tryin’ a trick! Steve, it’s
all lies! I’ve got a good mind to kill him my own self. But I ain’t
a-goin’ to, and don’t you shoot him neither. What good will it do
to----”
“I been waitin’ three year! What ye think--I’ll let him loose now?” A
harsh cackle followed--ending in another of those involuntary moans.
Steve lurched slightly. His face drew even tighter. “Keep off, the both
o’ ye!” he gasped.
“Make him tell the truth!” Douglas shot back. “Give him to the
officers--they’ll get the truth out of him--the truth that will clear
you! Don’t you see? You won’t have to hide any more then. You’ll never
have to go back to the pen. And he’ll get what’s coming to him for
murdering Lou. If you shoot him he never can clear you--the law will be
after you all your life! Are you going to kill your own chances? Don’t
be a fool!”
His rapid counsel stayed Steve’s fingers even as they tightened on the
triggers. So set on personal and deadly vengeance had the youth been
that the thought of making his betrayer rehabilitate him with the Law
had never occurred to him. Even now the idea made but slow headway
against his fixed mania for revenge. But he held his fire, letting the
dazzling possibility grow in his mind.
“That’s what I was tryin’ to tell you, Steve,” seconded Marion. “He
can’t talk if you kill him! Now you git away--we’ll give him to the
detectives--you git back to the cave and stay there till we tell you to
come out----”
Snake broke in. He had been squinting wildly at Douglas.
“Lou? Ye say I kilt Lou? I never! She--she fell often the Wall--I
didn’t have nothin’ to do with it--she got dizzy----”
All at once his eyes widened, looking beyond them. Douglas half turned,
then forced his gaze back, suspecting a trick. But it was no ruse.
Quiet footsteps sounded at the rear of the room. Then spoke a cool,
authoritative voice.
“Stand still, everybody. Don’t try anything sudden. We’ll take charge
of this thing now.”
Three heads jerked around. Snake still stared. From the obscurity of
Douglas’ sleeping-room had issued two men who now advanced watchfully,
right hands under their coats. They were Ward and Bill.