"Now, boys, to business!" cried the captain, briskly, as some of Milt's
acquaintances gathered around him to give him a welcoming hand. "We have
a little work before us tonight."
Soon the sound of a small cavalcade, riding rapidly along the country
roads, broke into the quiet of the night, perchance arousing some light
sleeper as it passed, who, after listening drowsily to the retreating
hoof-beats as they died away in the distance, would turn and mutter,
"The Night Riders," then drift into slumber again.
"Where are we going?" asked Milt, who rode by the side of Steve.
"To make one less toll-gate."
"Which one?" asked Milt, with an interest he did not care to betray.
"It's the Cross-Roads Gate, I think. You can look for a lot o' fun
tonight if it's that one, an' we get Maggie O'Flynn stirred up. She's a
regular circus in herself." Steve chuckled audibly at the prospective
entertainment.
"It will be something like stirring up a den of wild-cats, not counting
in Pat at all," Milt admitted.
"Pat don't count; he's a coward, through and through. The fun will all
be furnished by Maggie."
"And we fellows had better look sharp," cautioned Milt. "Maggie's a
pretty good shot, I've heard."
"We've seen to it that she won't have a chance to draw a bead on any of
us," admitted Steve. "She keeps a rifle at the gate, but one of the
neighbors borrowed it this very mornin' to shoot a hawk, an' somehow
forgot to carry it back. He won't think of it till in the mornin'.
Maggie's tongue is all that's left to guard the gate."
"And under ordinary circumstances that's sufficient," admitted Milt.
The raiders soon came out upon a turnpike, and after a ride of a mile or
two they reached a spot where the pike was intersected by another,
crossed at right angles. At the juncture of the two roads stood the
toll-house which had been chosen for the night's raid.
A raider was stationed about a hundred yards from the gate to guard the
approach from that direction, while the rest rode forward to where the
double poles were now raised at this mid-hour of the night. Three of the
horsemen passed through and took positions on the farther side of the
toll-house, at about equal distances from it along the two roads.
In the meantime the captain selected a man from among the members of the
band, who was least known to the locality, to act as spokesman, and
while the remaining raiders grouped themselves about the gate, a
resounding knock was given at the toll-house door.
"All roight! I'm afther comin'. Ye needn't break the dure down,"
answered a sleepy man's voice, deeply tinged with Celtic brogue. "What
the divil do ye want, anyway? The poles are raised!" the voice demanded
immediately after.
"We want these poles cut down," announced the spokesman of the band.
"Begorra! an' it's the raiders!" Pat said in a husky voice to his
awakened spouse.
"The phwat?" asked Maggie, in a shrill tone, evidently raising up in
bed.
"Whist, honey! The raiders!" repeated Pat, in more cautious tones.
"An' phwat do they want?" asked Maggie, in a still higher key.
"They want the poles cut down," faltered Pat.
"Indade! An' phwat do they mane wakin' up honest people this dead o' the
night, axin' the loike o' that?" demanded his wife, shrilly. "Get the
gun, Pat, an' shoot the dirty thaves!"
Pat, shaking with excitement or fear, in a low, tremulous voice,
inaudible to those without, reminded his spouse that the gun had been
loaned out and was no longer there.
"An' bad luck to the man that borrowed it!" cried the undaunted Maggie.
"It's betther used to shoot raiders with thin hawks."
"Get us an axe!" commanded the spokesman of the band, rapping sharply on
the door.
"It's out at the wood pile beyant the house," answered Pat, meekly.
"Hush, you fool!" cried his wife, shrilly. "Phwat did ye tell 'em for?
I'd 'a' seen the last wan o' thim to the divil first, where they'll go
quick enough."
Two of the raiders went in search of the axe, and soon its dull blows
were heard on the hard, seasoned wood of one of the poles, while the
sound of the cutting seemed to infuriate Maggie as nothing else had
done.
She sprang out of bed like a wildcat in nimbleness, and it took all the
strength and persuasion that Pat could muster to keep her from opening
the door and coming out into the midst of the raiders.
"Whist, darlint! Be aisy, for the love of hiven!" implored her
frightened spouse. "Ye'll bring down the wrath o' the whole gang on us
wid sich wild cacklin'. Be quiet!"
"Be quiet, indade! An' let thim prowlin' thaves cut down the poles an'
take away our livin'? Not much!" cried Maggie, fiercely. "If I only had
a gun, I'd loike to shoot the last wan o' thim--the dirty blackguards!"
"Hush, me jewel, an' mebbe they'll only cut down the poles an' l'ave us
in peace!" pleaded Pat.
"I _won't_ hush!" screeched Maggie, growing angrier each moment. "If
ye're skeert, ye c'n crawl under the bed an' hide, ye cowardly cur! I'll
go out an' run the last murdherin' wan o' thim away."
"Ye'll git the both of us kilt intoirely if ye don't dhry up wid yer
clatter!" entreated Pat.
"I know ivery dhirty mother's son av ye!" screamed Maggie, putting her
mouth close to the keyhole of the door, from which Pat had taken the
key, and hidden it. "I know ye all, an' I'll have ye in the pinitintiary
by termorrer night, ye bloodthirsty divils--ye--"
The rest of the sentence was suddenly muffled, as if Pat's hand had
interposed, while a scuffling sound was heard inside the room that
suggested he was trying to drag Maggie away from the door. The raiders
crowded around the platform of the toll-house, listening in an ecstasy
of delight.
Presently a resounding whack was heard, followed by a howl of pain from
Pat, whom Maggie had struck, and speedily she was back at the keyhole
again.
"Cut down the poles av ye want to, ye night-prowlin' rascals!" she
bawled lustily. "I'll have 'em both up ag'in by daylight, an' I'd loike
to see any sneakin' dog av ye git by an' not pay toll, ye thavin'
robbers!"
"She'll do it, too," muttered Steve, who was standing near the captain.
"She'll have bran'-new poles up almost before we can get home."
"The only way to get rid of this gate is to burn it, I think," said the
captain, with an oath. "As she wants to come out so much, suppose we
give her a chance. Get an armful of straw from the stable an' bring it
here! We'll smoke her out."
While Steve hurried off to obey the order, two of the others gathered up
some of the dry chips and splinters of wood from the cut poles, and when
Steve returned with the straw a fire was kindled on the platform in a
sheltered corner, farthest from the door.
As the flames quickly leaped up the walls of the toll-house, igniting
the dry timbers, the flash of light, the smoke, the crackle of burning
wood, all speedily revealed to the two within the building what was
taking place without.
"I tould ye to shut up, ye screechin' varmint!" cried Pat, in a
terror-stricken voice. "They're burnin' us up aloive. The howly saints
protect us!"
Maggie gave a loud whoop, this time rather of fear than of rage, though
the two were strongly blended.
"Help! Murdher!" she shrieked.
"I thought she'd change her tune, the wildcat!" muttered the captain,
grimly.
A few minutes later the back door of the toll-house was thrown quickly
open, but as the two terror-stricken inmates of the burning building
appeared in the doorway, ready to flee into the night, they were
confronted by a couple of raiders with masks and drawn pistols.
"Go back!" the men sternly commanded.
"For the love o' hiven, don't shoot!" pleaded Pat.
"Go back!" the men repeated, leveling their weapons threateningly.
In silent terror the two obeyed and shiveringly drew back into the
burning house. Dark spirals of smoke were by this time curling from the
roof in several places, and soon little jets of flame thickly dotted it,
shooting up from between the smoking shingles; then finally one broad
sheet of flame overspread the top--a canopy of fire.
Milt looked on in a sort of spell-bound fascination. What did the
raiders mean to do? Surely not to burn these two helpless people within
the toll-house. That were a crime far too serious for even this spirit
of outlawry.
He stood silent, watching with a growing fear the smoke escaping from
the roof, then the little spurting jets of flame, and when they united
in a broad, livid sheet, he felt no longer able to restrain his pity,
but started to where the captain sat on his horse, calmly watching the
proceedings, intending to petition him for mercy toward the two hapless
ones within the doomed toll-house.
Before he reached the leader of the band, however, the captain blew a
sharp call on his whistle, and while the three outlying guards beyond
the gate dashed up in answer to the summons, two of the raiders, at a
sign from their leader, had broken in the front door, then, mounting
their horses, the band rode swiftly down the road, after a shrill cry of
"Free roads! Down with the toll-gates!"
When Milt looked back he felt a wave of regret surge over him, as he
saw, by the glare of the light, which was illuminating the landscape
around, Maggie's lank figure looming up, tall and straight, in the
middle of the pike, her long arms stretched out menacingly toward the
retreating raiders, at whom she was doubtless hurling bitter,
Celtic-tinged invectives, while Pat was rushing wildly in and out of the
burning building, striving to save some of the few household
effects--then a curve in the turnpike shut off a further view.