WHEREIN A TRAP IS BAITED
Glenister did not wait long after his visitor's departure, but
extinguished the light, locked the door, and began the further
adventures of this night. The storm welcomed him with suffocating
violence, sucking the very breath from his lips, while the rain beat
through till his flesh was cold and aching. He thought with a pang of
the girl facing this tempest, going out to meet the thousand perils of
the night. And it remained for him to bear his part as she bore hers,
smilingly.
The last hour had added another and mysterious danger to his full
measure. Could the Kid be jealous of Cherry? Surely not. Then what else?
The tornado had driven his trailers to cover, evidently, for the
streets were given over to its violence, and Roy encountered no hostile
sign as he was buffeted from house to house. He adventured cautiously
and yet with haste, finding certain homes where the marshals had been
before him peopled now only by frightened wives and children. A
scattered few of the Vigilantes had been taken thus, while the warring
elements had prevented their families from spreading the alarm or
venturing out for succor. Those whom he was able to warn dressed
hurriedly, took their rifles, and went out into the drifting night,
leaving empty cabins and weeping women. The great fight was on.
Towards daylight the remnants of the Vigilantes straggled into the big
blank warehouse on the sand-spit, and there beneath the smoking glare
of lanterns cursed the name of McNamara. As dawn grayed the ragged
eastern sky-line, Dextry and Slapjack blew in through the spindrift,
bringing word from Cherry and lifting a load from Glenister's mind.
"There's a game girl," said the old miner, as he wrung out his clothes.
"She was half gone when she got to us, and now she's waiting for the
storm to break so that she can come back."
"It's clearing up to the east," Slapjack chattered. "D'you know, I'm
gettin' so rheumatic that ice-water don't feel comfortable to me no
more."
"Uriatic acid in the blood," said Dextry. "What's our next move?" he
asked of his partner. "When do we hang this politician? Seems like
we've got enough able-bodied piano-movers here to tie a can onto the
whole outfit, push the town site of Nome off the map, and start afresh."
"I think we had better lie low and watch developments," the other
cautioned. "There's no telling what may turn up during the day."
"That's right. Stranglers is like spirits--they work best in the dark."
As the day grew, the storm died, leaving ramparts of clouds
hanging sullenly above the ocean's rim, while those skilled in weather
prophecy foretold the coming of the equinoctial. In McNamara's office
there was great stir and the coming of many men. The boss sat in his
chair smoking countless cigars, his big face set in grim lines, his
hard eyes peering through the pall of blue at those he questioned. He
worked the wires of his machine until his dolls doubled and danced and
twisted at his touch. After a gusty interview he had dismissed Voorhees
with a merciless tongue-lashing, raging bitterly at the man's failure.
"You're not fit to herd sheep. Thirty men out all night and what do you
get? A dozen mullet-headed miners. You bag the mud-hens and the big
game runs to cover. I wanted Glenister, but you let him slip through
your fingers--now it's war. What a mess you've made! If I had even ONE
helper with a brain the size of a flaxseed, this game would be a gift,
but you've bungled every move from the start. Bah! Put a spy in the
bull-pen with those prisoners and make them talk. Offer them anything
for information. Now get out!"
He called for a certain deputy and questioned him regarding the night's
quest, remarking, finally:
"There's treachery somewhere. Those men were warned."
"Nobody came near Glenister's house except Miss Chester," the man
replied.
"What?"
"The Judge's niece. We caught her by mistake in the dark."
Later, one of the men who had been with Voorhees at the Northern asked
to see the receiver and told him:
"The chief won't believe that I saw Miss Chester in the dance-hall last
night, but she was there with Glenister. She must have put him wise to
our game or he wouldn't have known we were after him."
His hearer made no comment, but, when alone, rose and paced the floor
with heavy tread while his face grew savage and brutal.
"So that's the game, eh? It's man to man from now on. Very well,
Glenister, I'll have your life for that, and then--you'll pay, Miss
Helen." He considered carefully. A plot for a plot. If he could not
swap intrigue with these miners and beat them badly, he deserved to
lose. Now that the girl gave herself to their cause he would use her
again and see how well she answered. Public opinion would not stand too
great a strain, and, although he had acted within his rights last
night, he dared not go much further. Diplomacy, therefore, must serve.
He must force his enemies beyond the law and into his trap. She had
passed the word once; she would do so again.
He hurried to Stillman's house and stormed into the presence of the
Judge. He told the story so artfully that the Judge's astonished
unbelief yielded to rage and cowardice, and he sent for his niece. She
came down, white and silent, having heard the loud voices. The old man
berated her with shrewish fury, while McNamara stood silent. The girl
listened with entire self-control until her uncle made a reference to
Glenister that she found intolerable.
"Hush! I will not listen!" she cried, passionately. "I warned him
because you would have sacrificed him after he had saved our lives.
That is all. He is an honest man, and I am grateful to him. That is the
only foundation for your insult."
McNamara, with apparent candor, broke in:
"You thought you were doing right, of course, but your action will have
terrible consequences. Now we'll have riot, bloodshed, and Heaven knows
what. It was to save all this that I wanted to break up their
organization. A week's imprisonment would have done it, but now they're
armed and belligerent and we'll have a battle to-night."
"No, no!" she cried. "There mustn't be any violence."
"There is no use trying to check them. They are rushing to their own
destruction. I have learned that they plan to attack the Midas
to-night, and I'll have fifty soldiers waiting for them there. It is a
shame, for they are decent fellows, blinded by ignorance and misled by
that young miner. This will be the blackest night the North has ever
seen."
With this McNamara left the house and went in search of Voorhees,
remarking to himself: "Now, Miss Helen--send your warning--the sooner
the better. If I know those Vigilantes, it will set them crazy, and yet
not crazy enough to attack the Midas. They will strike for me, and when
they hit my poor, unguarded office, they'll think hell has moved North."
"Mr. Marshal," said he to his tool, "I want you to gather forty men
quietly and to arm them with Winchesters. They must be fellows who
won't faint at blood--you know the kind. Assemble them at my office
after dark, one at a time, by the back way. It must be done with
absolute secrecy. Now, see if you can do this one thing and not get
balled up. If you fail, I'll make you answer to me."
"Why don't you get the troops?" ventured Voorhees.
"If there's one thing I want to avoid, it's soldiers, either here or at
the mines. When they step in, we step out, and I'm not ready for that
just yet." The receiver smiled sinisterly.
Helen meanwhile had fled to her room, and there received Glenister's
note through Cherry Malotte's messenger. It rekindled her worst fears
and bore out McNamara's prophecy. The more she read of it the more
certain she grew that the crisis was only a question of hours, and that
with darkness, Tragedy would walk the streets of Nome. The thought of
the wrong already done was lost in the lonely girl's terror of the
crime about to happen, for it seemed to her she had been the instrument
to set these forces in motion, that she had loosed this swift-speeding
avalanche of greed, hatred, and brutality. And when the crash should
come--the girl shuddered. It must not be. She would shriek a warning
from the house-tops even at cost of her uncle, of McNamara, and of
herself. And yet she had no proof that a crime existed. Although it all
lay clear in her own mind, the certainty of it arose only from her
intuition. If only she were able to take a hand--if only she were not a
woman. Then Cherry Malotte's words anent Struve recurred to her, "A
bottle of wine and a woman's face." They brought back the lawyer's
assurance that those documents she had safeguarded all through the long
spring-time journey really contained the proof. If they did, then they
held the power to check this impending conflict. Her uncle and the boss
would not dare continue if threatened with exposure and prosecution.
The more she thought of it, the more urgent seemed the necessity to
prevent the battle of to-night. There was a chance here, at least, and
the only one.
Adding to her mental torment was the constant vision of that face in
the curtains at the Northern. It was her brother, yet what mystery
shrouded this affair, also? What kept him from her? What caused him to
slink away like a thief discovered? She grew dizzy and hysterical.
Struve turned in his chair as the door to his private office
opened, then leaped to his feet at sight of the gray-eyed girl standing
there.
"I came for the papers," she said.
"I knew you would." The blood went out of his cheeks, then surged back
up to his eyes. "It's a bargain, then?"
She nodded. "Give them to me first."
He laughed unpleasantly. "What do you take me for? I'll keep my part of
the bargain if you'll keep yours. But this is no place, nor time.
There's riot in the air, and I'm busy preparing for to-night. Come back
to-morrow when it's all over."
But it was the terror of to-night's doings that led her into his power.
"I'll never come back," she said. "It is my whim to know to-day--yes,
at once."
He meditated for a time. "Then to-day it shall be. I'll shirk the
fight, I'll sacrifice what shreds of duty have clung to me, because the
fever for you is in my bones, and it seems to me I'd do murder for it.
That's the kind of a man I am, and I have no pride in myself because of
it. But I've always been that way We'll ride to the Sign of the Sled.
It's a romantic little road-house ten miles from here, perched high
above the Snake River trail. We'll take dinner there together."
"But the papers?"
"I'll have them with me. We'll start in an hour."
"In an hour," she echoed, lifelessly, and left him.
He chuckled grimly and seized the telephone. "Central--call the Sled
road-house--seven rings on the Snake River branch. Hello! That you,
Shortz? This is Struve. Anybody at the house? Good. Turn them away if
they come and say that you're closed. None of your business. I'll be
out about dark, so have dinner for two. Spread yourself and keep the
place clear. Good-bye."
Strengthened by Glenister's note, Helen went straight to the other
woman and this time was not kept waiting nor greeted with sneers, but
found Cherry cloaked in a shy dignity, which she clasped tightly about
herself. Under her visitor's incoherence she lost her diffidence,
however, and, when Helen had finished, remarked, with decision: "Don't
go with him. He's a bad man."
"But I MUST. The blood of those men will be on me if I don't stop this
tragedy. If those papers tell the tale I think they do, I can call off
my uncle and make McNamara give back the mines. You said Struve told
you the whole scheme. Did you see the PROOF?"
"No, I have only his word, but he spoke of those documents repeatedly,
saying they contained his instructions to tie up the mines in order to
give a foothold for the lawsuits. He bragged that the rest of the gang
were in his power and that he could land them in the penitentiary for
conspiracy. That's all."
"It's the only chance," said Helen. "They are sending soldiers to the
Midas to lie in ambush, and you must warn the Vigilantes." Cherry paled
at this and ejaculated:
"Good Lord! Roy said he'd lead an attack to-night." The two stared at
each other.
"If I succeed with Struve I can stop it all--all of this injustice and
crime--everything."
"Do you realize what you're risking?" Cherry demanded. "That man is an
animal. You'll have to kill him to save yourself, and he'll never give
up those proofs."
"Yes, he will," said Helen, fiercely, "and I defy him to harm me. The
Sign of the Sled is a public roadhouse with a landlord, a telephone,
and other guests. Will you warn Mr. Glenister about the troops?"
"I will, and bless you for a brave girl. Wait a moment." Cherry took
from the dresser her tiny revolver. "Don't hesitate to use this. I want
you to know also that I'm sorry for what I said yesterday."
As she hurried away, Helen realized with a shock the change that the
past few months had wrought in her. In truth, it was as Glenister had
said, his Northland worked strangely with its denizens. What of that
shrinking girl who had stepped out of the sheltered life, strong only
in her untried honesty, to become a hunted, harried thing, juggling
with honor and reputation, in her heart a half-formed fear that she
might kill a man this night to gain her end? The elements were moulding
her with irresistible hands. Roy's contact with the primitive had not
roughened him more quickly than had hers.
She met her appointment with Struve, and they rode away together, he
talkative and elated, she silent and icy.
Late in the afternoon the cloud banks to the eastward assumed alarming
proportions. They brought with them an early nightfall, and when they
broke let forth a tempest which rivalled that of the previous night.
During the first of it armed men came sifting into McNamara's office
from the rear and were hidden throughout the building. Whenever he
descried a peculiarly desperate ruffian the boss called him aside for
private instruction and gave minute description of a wide-shouldered,
erect, youth in white hat and half-boots. Gradually he set his trap
with the men Voorhees had raked from the slums, and when it was done
smiled to himself. As he thought it over he ceased to regret the
miscarriage of last night's plan, for it had served to goad his enemies
to the point he desired, to the point where they would rush to their
own undoing. He thought with satisfaction of the role he would play in
the United States press when the sensational news of this night's
adventure came out. A court official who dared to do his duty despite a
lawless mob. A receiver who turned a midnight attack into a rout and
shambles. That is what they would say. What if he did exceed his
authority thereafter? What if there were a scandal? Who would question?
As to soldiers--no, decidedly no. He wished no help of soldiers at this
time.
The sight of a ship in the offing towards dark caused him some
uneasiness, for, notwithstanding the assurance that the course of
justice in the San Francisco courts had been clogged, he knew Bill
Wheaton to be a resourceful lawyer and a determined man. Therefore, it
relieved him to note the rising gale, which precluded the possibility
of interference from that source. Let them come to-morrow if they
would. By that time some of the mines would be ownerless and his
position strengthened a hundredfold.
He telephoned the mines to throw out guards, although he reasoned that
none but madmen would think of striking there in the face of the
warning which he knew must have been transmitted through Helen. Putting
on his rain-coat he sought Stillman.
"Bring your niece over to my place to-night. There's trouble in the air
and I'm prepared for it."
"She hasn't returned from her ride yet. I'm afraid she's caught in the
storm." The Judge gazed anxiously into the darkness.
During all the long day the Vigilantes lay in hiding, impatient
at their idleness and wondering at the lack of effort made towards
their discovery, not dreaming that McNamara had more cleverly hidden
plans behind. When Cherry's note of warning came they gathered in the
back room and gave voice to their opinions.
"There's only one way to clear the atmosphere," said the chairman.
"You bet," chorussed the others. "They've garrisoned the mines, so
let's go through the town and make a clean job of it. Let's hang the
whole outfit to one post."
This met with general approval, Glenister alone demurring. Said he: "I
have reasoned it out differently, and I want you to hear me through
before deciding. Last night I got word from Wheaton that the California
courts are against us. He attributes it to influence, but, whatever the
reason, we are cut off from all legal help either in this court or on
appeal. Now, suppose we lynch these officials to-night--what do we
gain? Martial law in two hours, our mines tied up for another year, and
who knows what else? Maybe a corrupter court next season. Suppose, on
the other hand, we fail--and somehow I feel that we will, for that boss
is no fool. What then? Those of us who don't find the morgue will end
in jail. You say we can't meet the soldiers. I say we can and must. We
must carry this row to them. We must jump it past the courts of Alaska,
past the courts of California, and up to the White House, where there's
one honest man, at least. We must do something to wake up the men in
Washington. We must get out of politics, for McNamara can beat us
there. Although he's a strong man he can't corrupt the President. We
have one shot left, and it must reach the Potomac. When Uncle Sam takes
a hand we'll get a square deal, so I say let us strike at the Midas
to-night and take her if we can. Some of us will go down, but what of
it?"
Following this harangue, he outlined a plan which in its unique daring
took away their breaths, and as he filled in detail after detail they
brightened with excitement and that love of the long chance which makes
gamblers of those who thread the silent valleys or tread the edge of
things. His boldness stirred them and enthusiasm did the rest.
"All I want for myself," he said, "is the chance to run the big risk.
It's mine by right."
Dextry spoke, breathlessly, to Slapjack in the pause which ensued:
"Ain't he a heller?"
"We'll go you," the miners chimed to a man. And the chairman added:
"Let's have Glenister lead this forlorn hope. I am willing to stand or
fall on his judgment." They acquiesced without a dissenting voice and
with the firm hands of a natural leader the young man took control.
"Let's hurry up," said one. "It's a long 'mush' and the mud is
knee-deep."
"No walking for us," said Roy. "We'll go by train."
"By train? How can we get a train?"
"Steal it," he answered, at which Dextry grinned delightedly at his
loose-jointed companion, and Slapjack showed his toothless gums in
answer, saying:
"He sure is."
A few more words and Glenister, accompanied by these two, slipped out
into the whirling storm, and a half-hour later the rest followed. One
by one the Vigilantes left, the blackness blotting them up an
arm's-length from the door, till at last the big, bleak warehouse
echoed hollowly to the voice of the wind and water.
Over in the eastern end of town, behind dark windows upon which the
sheeted rain beat furiously, other armed men lay patiently
waiting--waiting some word from the bulky shadow which stood with
folded arms close against a square of gray, while over their heads a
wretched old man paced back and forth, wringing his hands, pausing at
every turn to peer out into the night and to mumble the name of his
sister's child.