As the mule ambled along the mired streets of the wretched hamlet there
were eyes following its course that masked an interest beyond the
usual. If certain men who had attended yesterday's caucus still loafed
inactively about the sidewalks, it was not because they were
indifferent to possible developments, but in obedience to a settled
plan. Last night a party had set forth ahead. Its members were now
stationed at appointed posts in spots so lonely and so silent that one
might have passed them at a stone's throw without suspecting their
presence. They had gone singly and by different ways--at the start.
Others had come to cooperate from Viper and the net was spread with
meticulous care and completeness. For communication and signaling the
voices of forest things were available; the caw of the crow in the
timber, the bark of the fox in the thicket, the note of those birds
that the winter had not driven south.
Alexander's journey would not have been easy, had she ridden with no
prize to safeguard. There were washouts and quicksands; treacherous
fords and shelving precipices to be encountered, but here was a fortune
guarded only by a woman whose recklessness led her toward disaster.
"She's plum askin' fer hit--beggin' fer hit," grinned Lute Brown who
with a single companion strode along a wet and tangled trail shortly
after sunrise. "An' I reckon she'll get hit."
Soon after Alexander had taken her departure those interested in town
also began drifting toward the outbound trail. There must be, for
every campaign, a rear-guard as well as an advance.
But the three to whose earnest advice the young woman from
Shoulder-blade had turned a deaf ear, had not been content to accept
dismissal--or inactivity. Halloway and Sellers knew that the dangers
of which she made little could not be blinked at and they dared not
trust to luck nor rely solely upon her dauntlessness to see her through.
As for Halloway he had left Coal City under cover of the dawn's
twilight, while the white fog of mountain mornings still veiled the
world. He had gone on foot since, with his tireless strength, he could
so travel across the "roughs" at better than a mounted pace and be less
cumbered. His destination was the telegraph office at Viper. Jerry
O'Keefe and a handful of others were to mobolize inconspicuously
there--though they were to remain seemingly disconnected and await his
instructions. Brent was to come on later and in his command, though
not in his immediate company, were to be Bud Sellers and several more.
The chief difficulty, of course, lay in communication. It was rather a
matter of groping in the dark, and the only plan which had seemed
feasible had been to divide the intervening country into zones and to
arrange outwardly innocent signals which should designate the locality
in which it might become imperative to gather and strike. Telephones
were few, and those that existed purely local in radius, but since
mining properties were dotted over the terrain there were, here and
there, scattered "talkin' boxes."
By neither telegraph nor 'phone would it be practicable to talk
frankly, but Halloway meant to learn what he could, and Brent was to
call him up from time to time--if he could. His inquiries would be
couched in questions as to possible purchases of timber for next
season's cutting and the germ of the reply would be suggestions of
locations--which he would understand.
Alexander rode on alone and the ways were, at first, as deserted as
though they had never been fashioned for human usage. Between Coal
City and Viper lay a distance of ten miles but they were zig-zag and
semi-perpendicular miles with torrential waters to be forded. She
meant to ride only about four of them before abandoning her mule for
the detour on foot. But when she had left the town only a little way
two horsemen came up behind her. She knew neither of them, and they
were immature boys, with the empty and vacuous faces of almost
degenerate illiteracy. They seemed unarmed but since it was vital to
Alexander's scheme to ride unwatched it became important to have them
either go ahead or to distance them. Accordingly she urged her mule
into a lumbering canter and when a turn of the road had been reached
slowed down only to discover with a backward glance that the others had
galloped too, and were still close in her rear. Crossing a brook, she
paused to let her mule drink and they passed her slowly, staring with
the unabashed fixity and hanging jaws at the unaccustomed sight of a
woman riding astride in the clothing of a man. Then they went forward
at a snail's pace.
Alexander could feel no degree of security until the timber masked her
course and whether by intent or accident, these chance fellow wayfarers
had become a definite menace. So, fretting at the delay, she waited
there for some time, and when she made the next turning, she saw them
waiting with no apparent purpose in life save to pass and repass her.
She rode by again, this time with an angry coloring of her cheeks and
shook her lazy beast into a trot. Behind her trotted the two.
Eventually the girl drew rein, squarely and belligerently confronting
the troublesome though inoffensive looking pair.
"Hain't I got a license ter travel ther highway without bein' follered
an' bedeviled," she demanded angrily, and the two youths seemed at
first too abashed for speech. One of them, who was an almost albino
blond, flushed to the roots of his pale hair.
"I reckon hit jest chanced thet-a-way," he stammered. "We kinderly
happens ter be travelin' ther same direction, an' goin' ther same rate,
thet's all."
"Well don't let hit chanst thet way no more!" Her eyes were flaming
now with a blue light like burning alcohol. "You choose yore gait an'
let me choose mine. Take ther road or give hit, either way."
The second lad had found his tongue by this time and he elected to use
it truculently.
"This high-road's public property, I reckon," he announced. "A man kin
ride as he sees fit."
Alexander could not afford to parley and the suspicion was strong upon
her that the twain were less guileless than their seeming. She flashed
out a revolver and issued an ultimatum. "I warns ye both now. I'm
agoin' ter stand right hyar long enough ter count a hundred. If either
one of ye's in sight at ther end of thet time, I'm ergoin' ter begin
shootin'. Ef I sees ye ergin naggin' round me from now on, I'm goin'
ter begin shootin' too,--an' shoot ter kill."
She meant it, and after a questioning glance they knew that she meant
it. With some grumbled incoherence, they went on. They even went at a
gallop, and Alexander saw them no more. But perhaps even after that
they saw her.
Halloway came early into the hamlet of Viper, bedraggled with travel.
He knew that among the men about him must be at least several
accomplices to the conspiracy which he sought to defeat. He had been
in Coal City for only a few days past and never in Viper until now; so
until someone drifted in who remembered his interference at the tavern
he would not necessarily be recognized as having any connection with
Alexander's affairs. Indeed he had been seen with her so little that
he might altogether escape association with her in the minds of these
fellows. On the other hand any stranger would in all probability be
held under unremitting surveillance and he must therefore proceed with
extreme caution.
Jerry O'Keefe was lounging about the streets, gossiping with
acquaintances, but when Halloway passed him and brushed his shoulders,
neither gave any sign of recognition and Halloway brought up at last,
though with seeming aimlessness, at the telegraph office.
There, besides the man who sat at the key, he discovered three others,
all of unfamiliar mien, but he gathered from the scowls which they bent
on him that he was something less than welcome. Palpably the present
occupants of that small room preferred to remain uninterrupted in the
discussion of such matters as might arise, yet they did not wish to
manifest open or undue anxiety to a stranger.
"Howdy, men," began the new arrival affably as he stood towering over
the telegraph operator. Then looking down at that person he added with
awkward, back-country diffidence: "Stranger, be ye ther feller thet
works thet thar telegraph?"
The seated man looked up and nodded.
"I promised a man by ther name of Brent back thar in Coal City ter
kinderly see ef anybody along ther road I come hed any timber they
sought ter sell." The giant still spoke with a hulking shyness. "I
hain't l'arned nothin', because I come through soon in ther mornin' an'
ther roads was empty, but I reckon I'd better send him a message ter
thet effect."
Halloway noticed that, as he talked, the other men watched him narrowly
though, as he glanced in their direction, they fell at once into a
semblance of carelessness. The operator grunted, as he shoved forward
a blank with the instructions, "write out your telegram."
Halloway modestly thrust back the paper.
"I kin write--some----" he said, "but not skeercely good enough fer
thet. I 'lowed I'd get ye ter do hit fer me. Just say I haven't
heered of no timber fer sale. His name's Will Brent an' mine's Jack
Halloway."
As the seated man grudgingly scribbled, the newcomer lounged lazily
nearby, but just as the man at the key was about to begin sending, his
instrument fell into a frenzied activity. Halloway thought that the
other loiterers, who were really no more genuinely loitering than
himself, made a poor showing of indifference, and that their attitudes
betrayed their eagerness of waiting for whatever was coming over.
Finally the electric chatter ended. The seated man had cut in once or
twice with questions, and at the end he rose from his chair, not with a
regularly transcribed message, but with a few hastily jotted notes on a
sheet of paper in his hand.
Impulse had brought him to his feet but he stood hesitant, bethinking
himself of the presence of the interloper, and Halloway broke in with a
drawling inquiry pitched to a stupid inflection.
"Did ye send my message, Stranger? Did they say he war there?"
The operator flung him a churlish glance and a short answer. "Thet
office was busy," he said. "They didn't hev no time ter take your talk
jest now." Then with exaggerated carelessness he turned to one of the
other loungers. "Joe, ef ye'll come inter ther baggage room, I'll see
ef thet express parcel o' yourn's in thar. I think hit came afore ther
high-water."
"I reckon," murmured Halloway disappointedly, "I'll hev ter wait a
spell an' see kin I git my man later on," and making that observation
he settled into his chair with a seeming of permanent intent.
Meanwhile, in the privacy of the baggage room, the station-agent was
whispering excitedly to his companion. The man in his chair beyond the
door could of course hear no word of that hurried conference, but after
all he had no need to do so. He had read its essence at first hand
from the wire and it had run about like this:
"She driv two of our fellows back with a pistol when they sought to
follow her, but she left her mule and turned into the timber five miles
this side of Coal City."
Halloway had congratulated himself that to this extent at least
Alexander had succeeded, but his pleasure had been short-lived for the
operator here at Viper had flashed back the interrogation, "What then,"
and the other--who Halloway figured must be cutting in from Wolf-Pen
Gap--rapped out the disquieting reply:
"They're combin' ther timber fer her. Have your boys there head her
off at the mouth of Chimney-pot Fork in case she circles round the Gap."
A detail which might prove important struck Halloway as he listened.
He had recognized the sending from the other end as a man may recognize
a speaking voice.
It had been years since he had himself operated a key; but like many
adept telegraphers he could distinguish not only the dots and dashes of
the code, but also the individual peculiarities of their rapping out.
Now he would have been willing to take oath that the hand which had
sent this news was the same quick, sure hand that he had watched at
work yesterday.
That would indicate that Wicks had either deserted his post at Coal
City, or left it in charge of a relief man, and that he had come to
Wolf-Pen to operate a disused key nearer the scene of action.
Through the open door of the telegraph office Halloway, now burning
with impatience, could see Jerry O'Keefe strolling aimlessly along the
sidewalk a half a block away. Jerry too was waiting for instructions
and ready, once he had received them, to lead his own force out, with
that light in his eye that had dwelt there when he first saw Alexander.
Halloway rose, yawned, and stretched himself. As he did so his hands
almost brushed the ceiling.
"I reckon," he asserted, "I won't tarry no longer. Mebby I'll come
back again." But before he had reached the threshold the operator and
his companion stood looking on from the baggage room door. Even
unlettered Machiavellis must have their flashes of inspiration,
premonition, "hunch," or whatever you may choose to call it. Suddenly,
into the telegrapher's consciousness flashed the suspicion that in the
departure of this unknown observer lurked some hidden menace. In what
that danger lay he was all at sea but it was a thing he felt and upon
which he acted. The knight of the ticker jerked his head and raised a
hand, and before Halloway's own arms had descended from the heights to
which his yawn had stretched them, he found two pistols squarely
presented to his broad chest, and heard a voice instruct with
unmistakable finality, "Keep them hands up!"
Keeping them up, Halloway could still see across the shoulders of his
captors the distant figure of Jerry O'Keefe but with him he could not
communicate.
As he stood, rapidly thinking, it occurred to him that his strength and
agility might perhaps even yet avail him. With a lunge he might carry
down the two armed figures and escape, but before undertaking that he
turned his head for a backward glance and decided against the
experiment. Besides the Station Agent stood the third fellow, also
with a drawn and leveled weapon.
The Operator spoke again somewhat nervously. He had acted so
strenuously on pure impulse and not without a certain misgiving. Now
he felt the need of some explanation.
"Boys, when that instrument ticked a while back," he mendaciously
asserted, "hit was ther town marshal at Coal City talkin'. He
described this man an' said he was wanted thar fer settin' ther hotel
on fire day before yesterday. We hain't got no choice but ter hold
him."
Going to the drawer of his desk the speaker produced a pair of
handcuffs and rattled them as he explained, "Ther revenue man left
these hyar. Put 'em on him, Joe."
With the two pistols still pressed close Halloway slowly lowered his
wrists and submitted to the indignity of their shackling. Had any
human possibility of a break for freedom presented itself he would have
embraced it, but the three guns had the look of business and the three
faces back of them were flinty with purpose.
As the locks snapped into the grooves of the bracelets the telegrapher
commented in sardonic afterthought.
"Ther revenuer fergot ter leave ther key. I don't know how we'll ever
git them things loose ergin."
They led him at once back into a dark corner of the baggage room and
bestowed him there in a chair, where with a revolver against his
temple, they gagged him and lashed him by waist and legs. His hands
being sufficiently manacled they did not bind further.
Alexander had, when she came to a place which was rocky enough to leave
no footprints, slipped from her saddle, taken her rifle and saddle-bags
from their fastenings and disappeared into the timber. The mule she
knew would sooner or later be recognized and returned to the stable,
but she did not want it recognized too promptly so she led it with her
into the woods and turned it loose well up on the mountain side. From
that moment she disappeared with a completeness which attested her
woodcraft. It was as though she had been and then had ceased to be.
The way she elected to go followed the crests, since it is better when
"hiding-out" to look down than to be looked down upon.
The sodden woods gave a quieter footing than had they been frosty and
brittle underfoot, but even had it been otherwise she had the art of
silent movement.
She knew that sooner or later her ruse would be discovered by the
watchers of the conspiracy, but she asked only two hours of freedom.
After that she would be as difficult to find as the rabbit that has
gained the heart of the briar patch.
Once lying high up on a sheer and poroused precipice, she had seen a
party of horsemen ride by, far below, and she laughed inwardly to
herself, guessing at their purpose and object.
She came eventually to the sharp spur where that particular stretch of
ridge ended in a precipitous break. That meant that she must for
awhile go down to lower and more perilous levels. This was the final,
dubious stage of her journey and with it behind her, she would feel
that she had won through to security.
Because she was young and strong enough to laugh at fatigue and bold
enough to find a certain joy in recklessness, her spirits began to
mount. There are huntsmen who will tell you that the wily and
experienced fox comes to relish the chase more keenly than the pack
which courses him. Alexander went on with a smile in her eyes.
But when she had gone down into the cloistered shadows of the valley
her spirits descended too and when she slipped through the thickets and
reached a certain point, something like despair tightened about her
heart. Across the line of her march boiled a freshet which might as
well have been a river. To swim it with her impediments was impossible
and though it might carry her dangerously close to the road which she
sought to avoid, she had no choice. She must follow it until a
crossing developed.
As a woodsman, Alexander acknowledged few peers but this was to her,
unfamiliar country. She was moreover pitting her skill against one who
was her equal if not her superior, and who knew every trail and by-way
hereabouts. He was a youth with a vacuous, almost idiotic face, whom
she had that same day encountered. He had left her sight, but had
never been too remote to follow or gauge her course and what he learned
he relayed to others. In due time he had known without going further
just where she must bring up--for he knew the condition of that
stream--and its crossings.
The girl came, in due course, upon a broken litter of giant boulders,
each the size of a small house, which lay scattered where at last the
water grew shallow. She could even make out a point where one might
cross dryshod by leaping from rock to rock.
It was in a fashion a place of mystery and foreboding, for each of
those titanic rocks, with its age-long smoothness and greenness was a
screen whose other side might harbor things only to be guessed. There
one must risk an ambuscade, trusting to one's star, and Alexander
loosened her pistol and shifted her saddle-bags to her left shoulder
and her rifle to her left hand.
Then she started forward---and one by one left the boulders behind her
until she came to the last. As she rounded the final shoulder of
sandstone her hand was knocked up and her pistol fell clattering.
Her ambuscaders had known a thing which she had not--that for all the
roomy freedom of the woods she must come out at last through this one
passage--as wine must come out through the neck of the bottle.
About her closed a tightly grouped handful of men whose faces were
masked and whose bodies were covered by the uniformity of black rubber
coats.
Alexander did not surrender tamely. With the strength and the
desperation of a tigress she gave them battle, until the sheer force of
their numbers had smothered her into helplessness. Her coat was ripped
and her shirt hung in tatters from one curved shoulder before they
pinioned her and silenced her lips with a bandage.
After that they blind-folded her and carried her up and down hill,
twisting beyond all chance of guessing the course, to a place where the
air was cool with that freshness of quality that characterizes a
cavern. There they stood her upright and removed the bandage.
About her was a flare of torches and the grotesque play of shadows
between the grotto-like walls of an abandoned coal mine. About her too
ranged in the spectral formality of masked faces and black rubber
coats; of peaked hats with low turned brims, stood the circle of her
captors.
"Now, Alexander McGivins," proclaimed a deep and solemnly pitched
voice, "ye stands before ther dread an' awful conclave of ther order of
ther Ku-Klux; ther regulators of sich as defies proper an' decorous
livin'. We charges ye with unwomanly shamelessness an' with ther
practicin' of witchcraft."