A PIECE OF STRATEGY
A few idlers were on the platform of the station as we approached with
much apparent unconcern, our hands in our overcoat pockets where the
weapons lay.
“Where's the train?” I asked, looking at the bare track.
“Yonder,” grunted a native, pointing his thumb lazily up the road where
the engine lay by the watering tank, slaking its thirst.
“Well, just let me and Lockhart walk ahead,” said Fitzhugh gruffly, as
we started along the track. “I shouldn't have the first idea what we was
here for if you was to be knocked over.”
Fitzhugh could not be much more in the dark on this point than I, but I
let him have his way. If some one was to be shot, I was ready to resign
my claim to the distinction in favor of the first comer.
There were perhaps a score of people about the car.
“There's Abrams,” said Lockhart.
“There's no danger, then,” said Fitzhugh with a grin. “See, he's
beckoning to us.”
We hastened forward eagerly.
“What is it?” I asked.
“There's no one here,” said Abrams, with a puzzled look.
“Well, this car didn't come alone,” I returned. “Have you asked the
engineer?”
“Yes.”
“And the fireman?”
“Yes.”
“And they say--”
“That it's against the rules to talk.”
“Nonsense; I'll see them myself.” And I went forward to the engine.
The engineer was as close-mouthed as though words were going at a dollar
apiece and the market bounding upward. He declined dinner, could not be
induced to come and take a drink, and all that could be got out of him
was that he was going back to Niles, where he would stop until he got
orders from the superintendent.
When I tried to question the fireman, the engineer recovered his tongue,
and had so many orders to be attended to that my words were lost in a
rattle of coal and clang of iron.
And the engine, having drunk its fill, changed its labored breathing
to a hissing and swishing of steam that sent the hot vapor far on both
sides, and then gathering speed, puffed its swift way back the road by
which it had come, leaving the car deserted on a siding.
“Here's a go!” cried Fitzhugh. “A regular puzzler!”
“Guess it's none of the gang, after all,” said Lockhart.
Abrams shook his head.
“Don't you fool yourself,” he said. “They've landed below here, and
maybe they're in town while we've got our mouths open, fly-catching
around an empty car.”
“Good boy, Abrams,” I said. “My opinion exactly.”
“And what's to be done, then?” he asked anxiously.
“For the first thing, to visit the telegraph office at once.”
The operator was just locking his little room in the station as we came
up.
“No, sir, no telegrams,” he said; “none for anybody.”
“This is a new way of running trains,” I said with a show of
indifference, nodding toward the empty car.
“Oh, there was a party came up,” said the agent; “a dozen fellows or
more. Bill said they took a fancy to get off a mile or more down here,
and as they were an ugly-looking crew he didn't say anything to stop
them.”
“I don't see what they can be doing up in this part of the country,” I
returned innocently.
“I guess they know their business--anyway, it's none of mine,” said the
agent. “Do you go in here, sir? Well, it will save you from a wetting.”
We had been walking toward the hotel, and the chatty agent left us under
its veranda just as the light drops began to patter down in the dust of
the road, and to dim the outlines of the distant hills.
“I reckon that's the gang,” said Fitzhugh.
“I told you so,” said Abrams. “I knew it was one of Tom Terrill's sneaky
tricks.”
“Shall we take a look for 'em?” asked Lockhart.
“There's no need,” I replied.
The home guard of our party received the news calmly.
Wainwright had established a _modus vivendi_ with his young charge, and
I saw that he managed to get a word out of him now and then. I had to
abandon the theory that the boy was dumb, but I suspected that it was
fear rather than discretion that bridled his tongue.
“Do you think the gang have got into town?” asked one.
“They'll have wet jackets if they are on the road,” I returned, looking
at the rain outside.
“Hadn't we better find out?” inquired Wainwright.
“Are you in a hurry?” I asked in turn. “The landlord has promised to
send up a good dinner in a few minutes.”
“But you see--”
“Yes, I see,” I interrupted. “I see this--that they are here, that there
are a dozen or more of them, and that they are ready for any deviltry.
What more can we find out by roaming over the country?”
Wainwright nodded his agreement with me.
“And then,” I continued, “they won't try to do anything until after
dark--not before the middle of the night, I should say--or until the
townspeople have gone to bed.”
“You're right, sir,” said Abrams. “A dark night and a clear field suits
that gang best.”
“Well, here's the dinner,” said I; “so you can make yourselves easy.
Porter, you may keep an eye on the stairway, and Brown may watch from
the windows. The rest of us will fall to.”
In the midst of the meal Porter came in.
“Darby Meeker's in the office below,” he announced.
“Very good,” I said. “Just take Fitzhugh and Wilson with you, and ask
Mr. Meeker to join us.”
The men looked blank. Porter was the first to speak.
“You don't mean--”
“I mean to bring him up here,” I said blandly, rising from the table. “I
suppose, though, it's my place as host to do the honors.”
“No--no,” came in chorus from the men.
“Come on, Porter--Fitzhugh--Wilson,” I said; and then added sharply,
“sit down, the rest of you! We don't need a regiment to ask a man to
dinner.”
The others sank back into their seats, and the three I had named
followed me meekly down the hall and stairs.
I had never had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Meeker face to face, but I
doubted not that I should be able to pick him out. I was right. I knew
him the moment I saw him. He was tall and broad of shoulder, long of
arm, shifty of eye, and his square jaw was covered with a stubby red
beard. His color heightened as we walked into the office and cut off the
two doors of retreat.
“An unexpected pleasure,” I said, giving him good day.
His hand slipped to the side pocket of his sack coat, and then back
again, and he made a remark in an undertone that I fear was not intended
for a pleasant greeting.
“There's a little dinner of a few friends going on up stairs,” I said
politely. “Won't you join us?”
Meeker scowled a moment with evident surprise.
“No, I won't,” he growled.
“But it is a sad case for a man to dine alone,” I said smoothly. “You
will be very welcome.”
“No, sir,” said he, looking furtively at my men drawing near, between
him and the doors.
“But I insist,” I said politely. Then I added in a lower tone meant for
him alone: “Resist, you hound, and I'll have you carried up by your four
legs.”
His face was working with fear and passion. He looked at the blocked way
with the eye of a baited animal.
“I'll be damned first!” he cried. And seizing a chair he whirled around,
dashed it through a window, and leaped through the jagged panes before I
could spring forward to stop him.
“Round in front, men!” I cried, motioning my followers to sally through
the door. “Bring him back!” And an instant later I leaped through the
window after the flying enemy.
There was a fall of six feet, and as I landed on a pile of broken glass,
a bit shaken, with the rain beating on my head, it was a few seconds
before I recovered my wits. When I looked, no one was in sight. I heard
the men running on the porch of the hotel, so the enemy was not to be
sought that way. I set off full speed for the other corner, fifty
yards away, half suspecting an ambush. But at the turn I stopped. The
rain-soaked street was empty for a block before me. Far down the next
block a plodding figure under an umbrella bent to the gusts of the wind
and tried to ward off the driving spray of the storm. But Darby Meeker
had disappeared as though the earth had swallowed him up.
“Where is he?” cried Porter, the first of my men to reach my side.
I shrugged my shoulders. “I haven't seen him.”
“He didn't come our way--that I'll swear,” panted Fitzhugh.
“He was out of sight before I got my feet,” said I. “They must have a
hiding-place close by.”
“He must have jumped the fence here,” said Wilson, pointing to a cottage
just beyond the hotel's back yard. “I'll see about it.” And he vaulted
the pickets and looked about the place.
He was back in a minute with a shake of the head.
“Well, it's no great matter,” I said. “We can get along without another
guest for the afternoon. Now get under cover, boys, or you'll be soaked
through.”
The landlord met us with an air half-anxious, half-angry.
“I'd like to know who's to pay for this!” he cried. “There's a sash and
four panes of glass gone to smithereens.”
“The gentleman who just went out will be glad to pay for it, if you'll
call it to his attention,” I said blandly.
“I'll have the law on him!” shouted the landlord, getting red in the
face. “And if he's a friend of yours you'd better settle for him, or it
will be the worse for him.”
“I'm afraid he isn't a friend of mine,” I said dubiously. “He didn't
appear to take that view of it.”
“That's so,” admitted the landlord. “But I don't know his name, and
somebody's got to settle for that glass.”
I obliged the landlord with Mr. Meeker's name, and with the bestowal of
this poor satisfaction returned to the interrupted meal.
“Well, I reckon he wouldn't have been very pleasant company if you'd got
him,” said one of the men consolingly, when we had told our tale of the
search for a guest.
“I suspect he would be less disagreeable in here than out with his
gang,” I returned dryly, and turned the subject. I did not care to
discuss my plan to get a hostage now that it had failed.
The gray day plashed slowly toward nightfall. The rain fell by fits and
starts, now with a sudden dash, now gently as though it were only of
half a mind to fall at all. But the wind blew strong, and the clouds
that drove up from the far south were dark enough to have borne threats
of a coming deluge.
As the time wore on I suspected that my men grew uneasy, wondering what
we were there for, and why I did not make some move. Then I reflected
that this could not be. It was I who was wondering. The men were
accustomed to let me do their thinking for them, and could be troubled
no more here than in San Francisco. But what was I expected to do? Where
could my orders be? Had they gone astray? Had the plans of the Unknown
come to disaster through the difficulty of getting the telegraph on
Sunday? The office here was closed. The Unknown, being a woman,
I ungallantly reflected, would have neglected to take so small a
circumstance into consideration, and she might even now be besieging
the telegraph office in San Francisco in a vain effort to get word to
Livermore.
On this thought I bestirred myself, and after much trouble had speech
with the young man who combined in his person the offices of telegraph
operator, station master, ticket seller, freight agent and baggage
handler for the place. He objected to opening the office “out of office
hours.”
“There might be inducements discovered that would make it worth your
while, I suppose?” I said, jingling some silver carelessly in my pocket.
He smiled.
“Well, I don't care if I do,” he replied. “Whatever you think is fair,
of course.”
It was more than I thought fair, but the agent thawed into friendship at
once, and expressed his readiness to “call San Francisco” till he got an
answer if it took till dark.
I might have saved my trouble and my coin. San Francisco replied with
some emphasis that there was nothing for me, and never had been, and who
was I, anyhow?
There was nothing to be done. I must possess my soul in patience in the
belief that the Unknown knew what she was about and that I should get my
orders in due time--probably after nightfall, when darkness would cover
any necessary movement.
But if I could shift the worry and responsibility of the present
situation on the Unknown, there was another trouble that loomed larger
and more perplexing before my mind with each passing hour. If the
mission of to-day were prolonged into the morrow, what was to become of
the Omega deal, and where would Doddridge Knapp's plans of fortune be
found? I smiled to think that I should concern myself with this question
when I knew that Doddridge Knapp's men were waiting and watching for my
first movement with orders that probably did not stop at murder itself.
Yet my trouble of mind increased with the passing time as I vainly
endeavored to devise some plan to meet the difficulty that had been made
for me.
But as I saw no way to straighten out this tangle, I turned my attention
to the boy in the hope of getting from him some information that might
throw light on the situation.
“He's as shy as a young quail,” said Wainwright, when my advances were
received in stubborn silence.
“You seem to be getting along pretty well with him,” I suggested.
“Yes, sir; he'll talk a bit with me, but he's as close-mouthed a chap
as you'll find in the state, sir, unless it's one of them deef and
dummies.”
I made another unsuccessful attempt to cultivate the acquaintance of my
charge.
“You've got a day's job before you if you get him to open his
head,” said Wainwright, amused at the failure of my efforts as an
infant-charmer.
“What has he been talking about?” I inquired, somewhat disgusted.
“The train,” chuckled Wainwright. “Blamed if I think he's seen anything
else since he started.”
“The train?”
“Yes; the one we come on. He's been talking about it, and wondering what
I'd do with it and without it till I reckon we've covered pretty near
everything that could happen to a fellow with a train or without one.”
“Is that the only subject of interest?”
“Well, he did go so far as to say that the milk was different here, and
that he wanted a kind of cake we didn't get at dinner.”
I attacked the young man on his weak point, and got some brief answers
in reply to my remarks on the attractiveness of locomotives and the
virtues of cars. But as any venture away from the important subject was
met with the silence of the clam, I had at last to give up with a wild
desire to shake the young man until some more satisfactory idea should
come uppermost.
As darkness came on, the apprehensions of danger which had made no
impression on me by daylight, began to settle strongly on my spirits.
The wind that dashed the rain-drops in gusts on the panes seemed to
whistle a warning, and the splash of the water outside was as the
muttering of a tale of melancholy in an unknown tongue.
I concealed my fears and depressions from the men, and with the lighting
of the lamps made my dispositions to meet any attack that might come. I
had satisfied myself that the rear bedroom, that faced the south, could
not be entered from the outside without the aid of ladders. The parlor
showed a sheer drop to the street on the west, and I felt assured we
were safe on that side. But the front windows of the parlor, and the
front bedroom which joined it, opened on the veranda roof in common with
a dozen other rooms. Inside, the hallway, perhaps eight feet wide and
twenty-five feet long, offered the only approach to our rooms from the
stairs. The situation was not good for defense, and at the thought I had
a mind even then to seek other quarters.
It was too late for such a move, however, and I decided to make the best
of the position. I placed the boy in the south bedroom, which could
be reached only through the parlor. With him I placed Wainwright and
Fitzhugh, the two strongest men of the party. The north bedroom, opening
on the hallway, the veranda roof and the parlor, looked to be the
weakest part of my position, but I thought it might be used to advantage
as a post of observation. The windows were guarded with shutters of no
great strength. We closed and secured those of the parlor and the inner
bedroom as well as possible. Those of the north bedroom I left open. By
leaving the room dark it would be easy for a sentinel to get warning of
an assault by way of the veranda roof. I stationed Porter in the hall,
and Abrams in the dark bedroom, while Lockhart, Wilson, Brown and I held
the parlor and made ourselves comfortable until the time should come to
relieve the men on guard.
One by one the lights that could be seen here and there through the
town disappeared, the sounds from the streets and the other parts of the
house came more infrequently and at last were smothered in silence, and
only darkness and the storm remained.
I thrust open the door to the bedroom to see that the boy and his guards
were safe, and this done I turned down the light, threw myself on the
floor before the door that protected my charge, and mused over the
strange events that had crowded so swiftly upon me.
Subtle warnings of danger floated over my senses between sleeping and
waking, and each time I dropped into a doze I awoke with a start, to see
only the dimly-lighted forms of my men before me, and to hear only the
sweep and whistle of the wind outside and the dash of water against
the shutters. Thrice I had been aroused thus, when, on the borderland
between dreams and waking, a voice reached my ear.
“S-s-t! What was that?”
I sprang up, wide-awake, revolver in hand. It was Lockhart who spoke. We
all strained our ears to listen. There was nothing to be heard but the
moan of the wind and the dash of water.
“What was it?” I whispered.
“I don't know.”
“I heard nothing.”
“It was a coo-hoo--like the call of an owl, but--”
“But you thought it was a man?” Lockhart nodded. Brown and Wilson had
not heard it.
“Was it inside or outside?”
“It was out here, I thought,” said Lockhart doubtfully, pointing to the
street that ran by the side of the hotel.
I opened the door to the dark bedroom in which Abrams kept watch. It
swung noiselessly to my cautious touch. For a moment I could see nothing
of my henchman, but the window was open. Then, in the obscurity, I
thought I discovered his body lying half-way across the window-sill. I
waited for him to finish his observations on the weather, but as he made
no move I was struck with the fear that he had met foul play and touched
him lightly.
In a flash he had turned on me, and I felt the muzzle of a revolver
pressing against my side.
“If you wouldn't mind turning that gun the other way, it would suit me
just as well,” I said.
“Oh, it's you, is it?” said Abrams with a gulp. “I thought Darby Meeker
and his gang was at my back, sure.”
“Did you hear anything?” I asked.
“Yes; there was a call out here a bit ago. And there's half a dozen men
or more out there now--right at the corner.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes; I was a-listening to 'em when you give me such a start.”
“What were they saying?”
“I couldn't hear a word.”
“Give warning at the first move to get into the house. Blaze away with
your gun if anybody tries to climb on to the porch.”
Porter had heard nothing, but was wide awake, watching by the light of
the lamp that hung at the head of the stairway. And after a caution to
vigilance I returned to my chair.
For half an hour I listened closely. The men were open-eyed but silent.
The storm kept up its mournful murmur, but no sound that I could
attribute to man came to my straining ears.
Suddenly there was a cry from the hall.
“Who's there?” It was Porter's voice.
An instant later there was a crash of glass, an explosion seemed to
shake the house, and there was a rush of many feet.
I leaped to the door and flung it open, Lockhart, Wilson and Brown
crowding close behind me. A body of men filled the hallway, and Porter
was struggling in the hands of three ruffians. His revolver, whose shot
we had heard, had been knocked from his hand and lay on the floor.
The sudden appearance of four more weapons in the open doorway startled
the enemy into pausing for a moment. I sprang forward and gave the
nearest of Porter's assailants a blow that sent him staggering into the
midst of his band, and with a wrench Porter tore himself loose from the
other two and was with us again.
“What does this mean?” I cried angrily to the invaders. “What are you
here for?”
There were perhaps a dozen of them altogether, and in the midst of the
band I saw the evil face and snake-eyes of Tom Terrill. At the sight of
his repulsive features I could scarce refrain from sending a bullet in
his direction.
Darby Meeker growled an answer.
“You know what we're here for.”
“You have broken into a respectable house like a band of robbers,” I
cried. “What do you want?”
“You know what we want, Mr. Wilton,” was the surly answer. “Give us the
boy and we won't touch you.”
“And if not?”
There was silence for a few moments.
“What are you waiting for?” growled a voice from beyond the turn of the
hall.
At the sound I thrilled to the inmost fiber. Was it not the growl of the
Wolf? Could I be mistaken in those tones? I listened eagerly for another
word that might put it beyond doubt.
“Well, are you going to give him up?” asked the hoarse voice of Meeker.
“There has got to be some better reason for it than your demand,” I
suggested.
“Well, we've got reasons enough here. Stand ready, boys.”
“Look out!” I said to my men, with a glance behind. As I turned I saw
without noting it that Wainwright and Fitzhugh had come out of the
boy's room to take a hand in the impending trouble. Lockhart and Wilson
slipped in front of me.
“Get back and look after the boy,” whispered the former. “We can hold
'em here.”
“Move ahead there!” shouted a fierce voice that again thrilled the ear
and heart with the growl of the Wolf. “What are you afraid of?”
“Stand fast, boys,” I said to my men. “Wainwright, keep close to the
bedroom.” Then I shouted defiance to the enemy. “The first man that
moves forward gets killed! There are eight revolvers here.”
Then I saw that Wainwright had come forward, despite my bidding, eager
to take his share of the onslaught. And by some freak of the spirit of
the perverse the boy, who had shown himself so timid during the day,
had now slipped out of his room and climbed upon a chair to see what the
excitement was about, as though danger and death were the last things in
the world with which he had to reckon.
I caught a glimpse of his form out of the tail of my eye as he mounted
the chair in his night-dress. I turned with an exclamation to Wainwright
and was leaping to cover him from a possible bullet, when there was a
roar of rage and the voice of Terrill rang through the hall:
“Tricked again!” he cried with a dreadful oath. “It's the wrong boy!”