The lurking shadows along the stone wall suddenly grew into animated
forms, and the silence was broken by excited speech. The raiders faded
as quickly into the night as they had come, while the faint echoes of
retreating hoofs betokened a rapid flight of the band toward the hill
country.
"Have we bagged any game?"
The guards hastily scrambled over the rock fence after a parting volley
had been sent after the last retreating horseman, who had tarried a
brief while in his retreat, and each guard was eager to find an answer
to the leader's question.
"One man fell or dropped from his horse, I'll swear to that," the
sheriff made reply, looking along the gloom of the road with expectant
eyes. "We must surely have wounded one of them. It cannot have been a
total loss of lead."
"No, for I'm hit," a voice made the doleful assertion out of the
darkness farther along the fence line.
"Hello! Scott! Is that you? Are you much hurt?"
"Shot in the shoulder."
"Is that so?" asked the sheriff concernedly. "I'll look after your case
at once. Anybody else hurt?"
"I believe a bullet went through my hat and grazed my skull"--this a
second voice tinged with grave anxiety.
"If so, it probably flattened the bullet," was the unfeeling remark of a
companion.
The girl from the toll-house appeared just then on the platform--a
sudden apparition, startled of face, and with a hand that shook
perceptibly as she carried an old tin lantern.
"Is anybody hurt?" she anxiously inquired.
"A wound in the shoulder of one of our men; nothing serious, I hope,"
and the sheriff came forward to reassure her.
"And the raiders--what of them?" The girl's query was hastily made.
"One fell from his horse, but we can find no trace of him. He seems to
have escaped. Lend us your lantern," the sheriff added; "perhaps he
crawled off into the weeds."
"Here's a hat I found in the road!" The words came from an excited
guard.
"Fetch it to the light!" This from the sheriff.
The guard obeyed. As the hat was held close to the light of the lantern,
which the girl held obligingly over the rail, the men crowded around,
eager to examine the one trophy of battle.
"There's blood on it!" some voice exclaimed. "We must have wounded one
of the rascals at least. Likely he's in hiding now, close by."
"Lend us your lantern, Miss Sally."
The sheriff reached out for it, but before his fingers closed over the
handle, the girl's nervous hand suddenly relaxed its hold, and the
lantern fell to the hard bed of the pike. The glass in the sides
shivered as it struck, while the candle rolled out and was quickly
extinguished in the white dust of the road. The girl became the picture
of consternation.
"Oh!" she cried, "just see what I have done!"
"Perhaps it's the sight of blood. It makes some folks grow faint."
The sheriff spoke consolingly, pitying the girl's embarrassment, and
covertly regretting the accident.
"I'm all upset!" acknowledged the pretty toll-taker frankly. She looked
it, seemingly so innocent the while, one would scarcely have suspected
the accident to have been hastily planned by woman's nimble wit, in
order to gain yet more time before a further search could be made for
the wounded man.
When the hat was held up to the light, the girl recognized it almost
instantly as one Milton Derr was in the habit of wearing. He had worn it
that very day when he passed through the New Pike gate. Its recent
discovery by the guard, and the fresh stains of blood upon it, now
filled her with sudden terror and consternation.
Was Milton Derr among the raiders? The hat was a silent witness to the
fact. Had her lover been wounded? The blood stains gave conclusive
evidence. Was it possible that Milt had ventured back with the raiders
in the very face of the warning Sally had given him? Why had he risked
so much? Ah! was it for her sake? She asked herself this with a sudden
glow in her heart, set aflame by her lover's devotion, and a quick
resolve was formed to aid him in his present strait.
Many perplexing thoughts arose. Why had he not in turn warned the
raiders as she had expected him to do? Perhaps he had done so, but
without avail. Could they have ignored the warning, or have forced him
to come back with them? Possibly he came of his own accord to be of
whatever assistance he could in the face of danger that threatened the
inmates of the toll-house. The girl was in a sea of grave perplexities
and conflicting thoughts.
The voice of the sheriff close at hand broke into her bewildered train
of thought and recalled her abruptly to a sense of her surroundings.
"Miss Sally! I have stepped on the piece of candle and broken it. Can
you get me another?"
"Yes, certainly; I'll go at once," she answered hurriedly, glad to
escape into the toll-house, where her mother was busied hunting bandages
with which to dress the arm of the wounded man.
"It seemed as if I'd never be able to find another piece of candle,"
said the girl in apology when she finally came out after quite a little
search. "My wits have left me completely--I'm dazed."
"Hadn't you better leave the hat with me?" she asked with affected
indifference as the sheriff and his posse started off with the light to
look for the wounded raider along the road.
"I might as well do so;" then, as he was about to comply, the sheriff
added on second thought, "no, I'll take it along to shield the candle
from the wind, now that the lantern glass is broken."
At the spot where the hat had been picked up the searchers found some
dark splotches sprinkling the dust of the pike, as if blood had fallen
there, but the owner of the lost hat was nowhere to be found. The men
searched carefully some distance along the way, and closely examined the
patches of dusty weeds in the fence corners, but without reward.
"I am positive one of the raiders carried him off," insisted the guard.
"But for Gregory getting excited and firing before the raiders had
gotten in close range, we would certainly have killed or captured some
of them, perhaps have bagged the whole band by closing in upon them from
each end of the road. This comes of having green recruits," the sheriff
added grimly.
When the posse had gone with the lantern, Sally went once more into the
house and began to assist her mother in caring for the wounded guard,
but the girl's thoughts were far from being centered on the object of
her present skill and care, and she listened momentarily and with
growing anxiety for additional news concerning the owner of the lost
hat.
Could it be that it was not Milton's, after all? She felt almost
positive that she had made no mistake in regard to its ownership, and
she had suggested the leaving of the hat with her that she might give it
a closer scrutiny and satisfy herself on this point.
If the hat were really Milton Derr's, on the under lining, inside the
band, was his name and hers, both done in red ink, along with an
arrow-pierced heart, and the date on which the names had been
written--September 10th.
There had been a little picnic on this date. She and Milton, along with
Sophronia and her beau, and a few others, had gone for an outing up in
the hills. The usual rain that invariably and maliciously awaits such
gatherings suddenly came up, and the party had taken shelter for a time
in the old schoolhouse in Alder Creek glen--the very log building where
Sally's first girlish fancy had been captured by Milt's dark eyes and
ruddy face. Here, as a stripling, he had fought battles for his lady
love, and Jade Beddow had sought in vain to supplant him in her
affections.
While the picnic party had waited for the rain to abate, Milt had
usurped one of the children's desks, and written the two names on the
inner lining of his hat-band, covertly showing the results of his skill
to Sally.
If these names should be discovered, and discovery was imminent, it
would clearly fasten the ownership of the hat on Milton Derr, even if no
one could identify it otherwise. She felt a growing eagerness to get
possession of the hat, and tear out the tell-tale lining, yet she dared
not betray her anxiety, lest it arouse suspicion and hasten the
discovery she would gladly avert.
In the midst of her uncertainties and fears she caught sound of Squire
Bixler's voice outside the toll-house.
He had hurriedly put on his shoes and great coat, and ridden over to the
gate to learn the results of the fight between raiders and guards,
prudently waiting, however, until the firing had ceased; and he had
heard, with deep disappointment and regret, the retreating hoof-beats of
horses galloping toward the hills. Despite the sound, he hoped that one
raider at least had been left behind.
The Squire's chagrin was poignant when he learned that not a single
member of the band had been either killed or captured, and that the sole
spoil of battle, on which he had so largely counted, was but a gray felt
hat, streaked with blood, that had been picked up in the middle of the
dusty road.
"By heaven!" cried the Squire wrathfully, when this single trophy was
shown him, "I'll find the owner of that hat and punish him, if it takes
every detective in the state to help me to do it."