INTO THE FIRE!
The moon had just risen. Her light silvered the dark hemlock tops, and,
by bad luck, fell in a flood full upon Rob and Jumbo. The man who had
sprung into such sudden activity was, on the contrary, completely
shrouded in the black shadow of the hut.
Even had they had weapons they would, situated as they were, have been
completely in his power. To use a slang term, but one full of
expressiveness, he had "the drop" on them.
"Who are you?" rasped out the inmate of the hut in a harsh, startled
voice. "Speak quick, for I'm right smart on the trigger."
"We are two wanderers who have lost our way," rejoined Rob, "we have no
weapons and have no wish to harm you."
"Come forward a bit while I look you over," said the man, his suspicion
mollified a bit by the boyish tone. But the next instant, as his eyes
fell on Rob's uniform, he seemed to bristle with suspicion again.
"What's that uniform?" he demanded; "be you some new-fangled revenue?"
"I'm a Boy Scout," rejoined Rob, and then, thinking it best not to relate
his whole story at once, he added, "I got lost on a scouting expedition.
Our camp is not far from here on the other side of the lake. All we want
is some food, drink and shelter."
"Boy Scout, eh?" said the man, eyeing him curiously, "um, ay, I've read
of 'em. To my mind you'd be best at home instead of gallivanting around
the country and getting lost. But who's that black fellow?"
"Ah'se a 'spectable colored gen'ulman, suh," began Jumbo indignantly in
his usual formula. But the black-bearded man checked him with a gesture.
"You're just a nigger, nigger, don't forget that. I come from south of
the Mason and Dixon line."
"Yas, sah, yas, sah," grinned Jumbo. The big black shivered and showed
all the gleaming white of his teeth and eyes in his alarm at the bearded
little man's fierce looks and gestures.
"S'pose I feed yer," was the bearded one's next question, "kin you pay?
I'm a poor woodsman and----"
"Oh, we can pay," Rob assured him. Foolishly he drew out a rather
well-filled purse. The next moment he wished he hadn't. For a brief
instant the hut-dweller's keen, serpent-like black eyes had kindled with
an avaricious flame.
But he cleverly masked whatever emotion it was that had swept over him at
sight of the money receptacle.
"Guess that'll be all right," he said, "come on in."
Rather troubled in his mind, but deciding that it was best to accept the
situation as it unfolded, Rob followed his conductor into the hut. Jumbo
ambled along behind, his black face expanded in a grin of wonderment. The
hut, within, proved to be a roughly constructed affair of raw logs. The
chinks were plastered with clay, mixed with grass to give it consistency.
A few skins hung on the walls and some rough, home-made furniture stood
about.
At one end of the place was a huge, open fireplace, with a big
hearthstone. It was not used, however, the cookery being done upon the
stove, which also provided the heat.
At the end of the hut opposite to the chimney a rough flight of steps led
to an attic. After the two half-famished wanderers had concluded a hearty
meal, washed down by strong, hot, black coffee, their host motioned to
the steps.
"Ef you want a shake-down you'll find straw up thar," he said.
Rob thanked him civilly and he and Jumbo climbed the stairway and found
themselves in a low-ceiled loft. The floor was of unnailed boards.
Through the chinks between them the ruddy lamplight below could be seen.
"Dere's wusser beds in dis wale ob tears dan nice clean straw," observed
Jumbo philosophically as he threw himself on his heap. Rob agreed with
him. The straw did, indeed, seem soft and grateful after their recent
hard knocks and experiences. Following Jumbo's example, the lad made for
himself a kind of nest. Curling up in it he was soon off in the deep,
dreamless slumber of healthy boyhood.
Voices awakened Rob. He sat up sharply. They were coming from below. The
sounds of the conversation floated up through the wide chinks in the
rough floor.
Rob rolled on his side and peered through the most convenient crack.
Three men were now in the room below him. As he gazed he was amazed to
see the hearthstone swing bodily backward, on some concealed hinges, and
a fourth man emerge from some secret passage.
"Wall," said the newcomer, a huge figure of a man with a big, blond
viking-like beard, "the last keg is headed and fixed up. We've finished
our work. To-morrow----"
But the black-bearded man checked him with a sharp gesture.
"Shut up, Sims," he warned, "not so loud. Go ahead, Watkins," he went on,
turning to one of the men with whom he had been talking.
"What I ses is," resumed this fellow, a squatty-built, loosely-hung
little fellow, with close-cropped sandy hair, and a bristly growth on his
chin, like the stubble on an old tooth brush, "what I ses is, don't take
no risks."
He paused impressively and then added in a lowered voice, but one that
reached Rob, nevertheless, with thrilling clearness:
"Fix 'em."
"Great Abraham Lincoln!" gasped the boy, "this is a nice nest of hornets
we've stumbled into. 'Fix 'em,' that must mean us."
But the talk went on, and Rob strained his ears for the continuation.
"But if they was guvn'ment men they wouldn't hev walked in like they
done, I reckon," put in another man, a pallid, sickly-looking chap, with
pink-rimmed eyes and a ferrety, furtive manner.
"Best be on the safe side," counselled the black-bearded man, who had
introduced the travelers to the hut, "they've got money, too."
"Money?" questioned the blonde-bearded man.
"Yes. The boy has. And they haven't got any weapons. I guess we'll have
an easy time of it with them."
"That nigger looks pretty hefty, and the kid's no weakling."
It was the pink-eyed man who spoke. Rob felt a shiver run through him. So
they had been observed while they were asleep and never knew it!
"Oh, I'm a fine Scout!" thought the lad bitterly.
"Seems kind of tough on the kid," said the blonde-bearded man, "but you
never did have no sense of pity, Black Bart."
Black Bart! Rob's heart stood still and then beat furiously. These men
then, were the moonshiners of whom Dale had spoken that afternoon. It
seemed, too, from their talk, that they suspected him and Jumbo of being
government spies. In that case they would stop at nothing. And they were
four to one. The Boy Scout felt for the knife he had filched from Dale,
but in their passage through the woods it must have been lost, for he
could not find it on him.
"Kid or no kid," retorted Black Bart, viciously, "he can tell the
revenues a story jes' as well as anybody else, can't he?"
"That's so," agreed the red-headed man, "and if they get us this time
they'll make it hot for us."
This argument seemed to extinguish all regrets in the blond-bearded man's
mind.
"When air you goin' ter do it?" he asked. His voice was perfectly
matter-of-fact and cold-blooded.
"No time like the present. But it's best to get 'em asleep. We don't want
no noise," said Black Bart, with deliberation. "Pinky," to the pink-eyed
man, "jes' take a look upstairs and see if they are asleep."
Rob laid down and crouched still as a mouse while he heard Pinky ascend
the creaking stairs, satisfy himself that the intended victims were
asleep, and retreat again.
Then the boy awakened Jumbo. In a few words he apprised him of the
situation. To Rob's great relief, the negro, in this dire emergency,
seemed to be as self-possessed as he was cowardly in minor matters. Many
natures are so constituted.
"What we gwine ter do, Marse Rob?" he breathed, crawling noiselessly
about on his straw.
"There's a window over there," whispered Rob; "we'll have to drop through
it and chance coming out safely."
"Lawsy sakes! S'posin' it looks out on one ob dem bottomless pitses lak
yo' all near fell inter ter-night?"
"Can't be helped, it's the only way we can escape. Hark! They're coming
now. Get over to the window with as little noise as you can."
"How 'bout you alls?"
"I'll follow. You get it open first."
Without another word the negro noiselessly wriggled across the floor to
the window--a mere opening in the wall--that Rob had observed. At the
same instant there came the "creak! creak!" of the staircase as one of
the men below began to ascend the stairway.
There was a big bit of loose timber lying near Rob's straw. With a sudden
flash of anger at the thought of the men's treachery, the lad snatched it
up.
"They shan't get off scot free, anyhow," he decided within himself.
With the bulk of timber clutched in both his hands, ready poised for a
blow, Rob waited by the opening at the head of the rickety stairway as
the midnight assailant ascended.