For a moment as she turned observant eyes about the walls of the place
to which she had been brought, Alexander almost hoped that the
astonishing statement of the spokesman was a true one--that in store
for her, instead of robbery and possible outrage, lay only the judgment
of the punitive clan. Such punishment might be brutally severe but she
could face it in such fashion as would vindicate her claim of playing a
man's game in a man's way.
So she stood there meeting the eyes that glared at her through the slit
masks with a splendid assumption of scorn and defiance. She was keyed
to that mood which makes it possible for martyrs to acquit themselves,
even at the stake, with a victorious disdain.
Through this section of the mountains there had never been, since
reconstruction days, any survival of the Ku-Klux in a true sense, but
now and then, as in all wild and violent countries, sporadic
"regulations" occurred in which masked men took a faltering law into
their own less faltering hands. Sometimes it was a bastard Ku-Klux in
the original meaning of the term, a Vigilance Committee operating
against abuses which the law failed to check. Oftener it was a
masquerade behind which moved designs of personal hatred and vengeance.
Sometimes the wife-beater or the harlot was punished. Sometimes the
stronger enemy persecuted the weaker.
While Alexander waited for the next development, her captors prolonged
the silence in order that the suspense of unguessed things should sap
her courage.
The entrance through which they had come showed only as a darker spot
in the shadowed vagueness of a far wall of rock, but there was a
squareness about it which suggested a mineshaft. The walls themselves
were streaked with black seams of coal and dug into tunnels that led in
unknown directions.
The place was lighted by several lanterns of feeble power and a number
of pine torches, and between the spot where they had stationed her and
the crescent of dark figures that stood as silent accusers and judges,
ran a trickling rivulet of water. At that detail Alexander smiled, for
she knew that it was part and parcel of the absurdity contained in the
allegation of witchcraft. The black art is powerless, by mountain
tradition, to cross running water.
A bat fluttered zig-zag about the place brushing her cheek, but
Alexander was not the sort of woman to be frightened by a bat.
When the calculated silence had held for perhaps five full minutes, the
standing men meanwhile remaining as motionless as though they were
themselves carved from coal, Alexander spoke.
"Why don't ye say somethin'," she demanded. "I've got friends thet'll
be s'archin' these hills fer me right vigorous ef I don't git ter Viper
in good time."
It was a bold and provocative speech, but it failed to tempt the silent
men out of the pose they had assumed. They knew the effect of
protracted silence and impending danger to sap even an assertive
courage and for five other minutes they stood wordless and motionless.
Only their shadows moved under the torch-light, wavering fitfully from
small to large, from light to dark like draperies in a wind.
Finally the man at the center who appeared to exercise a sort of
command moved a step forward and raised both hands. The others lifted
high their right arms and in a sepulchral voice the spokesman demanded,
"Does ye all solemnly sw'ar, by ther dreadful oath ye've done tuck,
with yore lives forfeit fer disloyalty or disobedience, ter try this
wench on ther charge of outragin' decorum--an' practicin' ther foul
charms of witchcraft? Does ye all sw'ar ter deal with her in full an'
unmitigated jestice despite thet she s'arves Satan with a comely face
and a comely body? Does ye all sw'ar?"
The raised hands, with a unanimous and solemn gesture, fell over the
hearts of the questioned and then came aloft once more, still as if
with a single nerve impulse. In a unison out of which no separate
voice emerged sounded the reply: "We does!"
Alexander laughed, but it must be confessed that that was pure bravado.
She knew that on the backwaters of many creeks were cabins where simple
folks invoked charms against witchcraft and did so with genuine dread.
She knew that many others, less candid, laughed at old superstitions
yet acknowledged them in their hearts. In her case the witchcraft
charge was of course a cloak for subterfuge, but it was a jest which
might bear bitterly serious results.
"Alexander McGivins," began the spokesman afresh, "we charges ye with
these weighty matters; thet ye glories in callin' yoreself a
he-woman--refusin' ter accept God's mandate an' castin' mortification
on yore own sex by holdin' on ter shameless notions. We charges ye
with settin' ther example of unwomanly behavior before ther eyes of
young gals, an' we aims ter make a sample of ye.
"We furthermore charges ye with practicin' witchcraft; with castin'
spells an' performin' devil's work." He wheeled and demanded suddenly;
"Number Thirteen, I calls on ye ter step forward an' testify. How does
witches gain thar black powers?"
The answering voice, was plainly disguised, and it came with the
lugubrious quality of calculated awesomeness.
"By compact with Satan."
"Number Thirteen, how is sich-like compacts made?"
"Thar's ways an' ways. A body kin go up ter a mounting top fer nine
nights an' shoot through a kerchief at ther moon, cussin' ther Almighty
each separate time, an' ownin' Satan fer master."
"Number Thirteen, what powers does Satan give these hyar sarvants of
his'n?"
"They gains ther baleful power ter kill folks with witch balls, rolled
tight outen ther hair of a cow or a varmint. By runnin' a hand over a
rifle gun they kin make hit shoot crooked. They kin spell a houn' dog
so thet he back-tracks 'stid of trailin' for'ards. They kin bring on
all manner of pestilence an' make cows go dry an' hosses fling their
riders. They kin----"
"Thet's enough, Number Thirteen," announced the spokesman. "Thet's a
lavish of evil. How kin they be hindered from this deviltry?"
"Thar's means of liftin' spells, but nothin' save death hitself cures
ther witches."
"Number Thirteen, how does ye go about hit, ter slay a witch?"
"By shootin' with a silver bullet run outen a mould thet's done been
rubbed with willow-sprigs."
"Number Thirteen, in the event of need, hev ye got sich a bullet hyar?"
"Each one of us hes got one."
Once more the apparent head of the clan turned to the girl. "Woman,
air ye guilty or not guilty?"
"I reckon," suggested Alexander coolly, "ye'd better ask Number
Thirteen. He 'pears ter know 'most everything."
But the spokesman declined to be lured by frivolous taunt from his
vantage ground of solemnity. He turned his head and gravely inquired:
"Number Thirteen, how does ye det'armine ther guilt of a witch?"
"Ef a preacher comes nigh, she kain't help turnin' her back."
"I reckon we hain't skeercely got no preacher handy ter test her with,"
interrupted the master of ceremonies drily, and the other went on.
"Ef she stays hyar 'twell midnight a sperit in ther guise of a black
cat'll appear ter do her biddin'."
On the ground lay the saddle-bags and the rifle; as yet unmolested.
Before they had loosened the blindfold from her eyes she had been
subjected to the needless indignity of bound wrists and now she was
entirely helpless.
Her coat hung on her tattered during the struggle and her flannel shirt
had been rent until both garments sagged from her shoulders, leaving
bare the white curves of their flesh. The circle had fallen silent
again. It remained silent for a half hour, then the man who had acted
as chief inquisitor drew aside that other whom Alexander knew only as
Number Thirteen, and, apart, they conferred in lowered voices. In the
manner of these two, the captive recognized indications of anxiety.
Palpably some detail of their plans had gone awry and that miscarriage,
whatever its nature, was troubling their peace of mind. Had she
understood more fully it would likewise have troubled her.
The conventional and successful course of highway robbery runs in the
channel of a swift accomplishment and a rapid getaway. Yet this crew,
leaving the saddle-bags uninvestigated at their feet, were solemnly
playing out their farce at the expense of valuable time--time which
should have stood for miles put between themselves and pursuit.
Was the difficulty that of disposing of her? If so, she stood face to
face with a stark and grim extremity. Murder and concealment of a
lifeless body, here, would be easy enough. These men were desperadoes,
and if dire enough need pressed them they would not, she thought, balk
overlong at the idea of killing a woman.
Yet the leader, studiously maintaining his Ku-Klux masquerade, parleyed
with his underlings and consulted a heavy nickel-cased watch. His
gesture showed a petulant impatience. The men in the silent circle
stirred uneasily and from time to time low growls broke from their
muffled lips. Obviously they were awaiting some development which
though overdue had not materialized.
The half hour became an hour, then doubled itself to a full two--in
oppressive silence.
"What be ye awaitin' fer?" Alexander demanded in a taunting voice,
though inwardly she felt that the peril was pregnant and immediate.
The only satisfaction she could deny them now was that of any confessed
fear.
This time the speaker snarled his answer back at her angrily, without
any consistent attempt at holding the ritualistic impressiveness of
manner.
"Mebby we're waitin' fer midnight--twell ther black cat comes."
Alexander could not guess that all these malefactors were on
tenterhooks of misgiving because the arrangement entered into as a
concession to the vanity of Jase Mallows had failed; the fictitious
rescue which was to re-establish him in the eyes of the girl and give
to them the chance to practice highway robbery, still stopping short of
murder. The whole scheme had been cut to that pattern and it was now
too late to evolve a new strategy. The trial was to have seemed
genuine. It was to have been followed by a fictitious battle in which
the alleged regulators were to have been put to flight by the
victorious entry of Jase himself with his underlings. The girl,
snatched from the jaws of death by his valor would henceforth rest
under such obligations as could be recompensed only by her favor--but
in the melee, her money would disappear.
Jase had not come--and the captive whom he was to take off their hands
must either be done to death or liberated with a wagging tongue.
Eventually the masked head-highwayman led two of his men aside. He
recognized that having compacted with Jase they could not ignore him.
In a whisper he ventured the suggestion, "Mebby Jase hes done come ter
grief. Mebby we'd better kill ther gal atter all an' git away. But if
we does we've got ter git Jase afore he has time ter blab an' hang us
all."
Halloway spending a long and dreary day bound to his chair in the
baggage-room at Viper had succeeded in wriggling his lips free of the
bandage. As yet that was only an academic victory. Unless there stood
in the room where the instrument ticked a sufficiently strong force of
his friends to wage a successful battle, any sound from his lips would
mean only death for them and himself--without material advantage to his
cause.
Twice during his long inactivity the raucous sound of a telephone bell
jangled and he heard a voice replying to some inquiry, "No, he hain't
been here." The question so answered, he guessed, had come from Brent
seeking to locate him and confer with him as he came along the road
between Coal City and Viper. He thought very grimly and with bitter
futility of the force waiting so near and so eagerly keyed to action
under O'Keefe, which one minute of private speech would launch into a
hurricane effectiveness. In mad moments he had even tried to break the
chain between the steel bracelets that bit into his wrists. His Samson
strength had strained until the arteries swelled in his temples and it
has been almost enough--but not quite. A link had stretched a bit, but
the wrists had been so lacerated that the effort had to be abandoned.
Then when the day was spent towards late afternoon he caught the
chatter of the key again, somewhat confused by the intervening wall,
but though he missed part of the message he caught a few words which
were pregnant with meaning . . . "got her . . . in mine shaft . . .
back of Gap."
Now, Halloway told himself, as tortured sweat of suspense dripped down
his face, he must somehow convey word to Jerry O'Keefe--but how? He
had the facts--the location--the certainty and he could use none of his
vital information.
He twisted his two gyved hands around and got one of them into his coat
pocket. He brought out the pipe which he could neither fill nor light,
but there was a certain steadying comfort in feeling its cool stem
between his teeth.
During the captive's leisure for reflection he had been pondering one
point which had puzzled him. From what telegraph office out there in
the wilds was Wicks acting as intelligence bureau? Obviously he must
be near the Gap itself as the station wire followed the railroad.
Then he remembered a device that he had seen used about mining
properties and laughed at his own stupidity in remaining as long
baffled. The few telephones hereabouts were party lines where all
conversation could be overheard and so, for the use of highwaymen, they
were unavailable. Wicks had merely brought a key, a battery and a
ground wire with him and he had cut in on a telephone line. There
were, he remembered now, two instruments on the operator's table here.
One was the twin to the thing upon which the resourceful Wricks was
playing.
Brent and Bud Sellers had ridden with spirits rapidly sinking since
they had drawn near to that territory which lay adjacent to Wolf-Pen
Gap. The failure to reach Halloway by 'phone at Viper was a bad
augury, since it left them in the position of an army whose
intelligence bureau has collapsed.
The two horsemen had ridden through wintry forests along steep and
difficult roads where it seemed that they alone represented humanity.
Of course Alexander, herself, might be traveling as uneventfully as
themselves, but they could feel no great confidence in that hope and
now there was nothing to do but to push on to Viper, perhaps passing by
spots where they were sorely needed, as they went, and to try to find
Halloway, whose silence left them groping in the dark.
Will Brent was, in the sense of present requirements, no woodsman. He
knew the forests as a lumber expert knows them, but the seemingly
trivial and minute indications that another might have read, carried
for him no meaning.
However, he put his dependence in Bud Sellers whose knowledge of such
lore amounted to wizardry, and at one point Bud halted abruptly gazing
down with absorbtion from his saddle.
"Right hyar," he said shortly, "Alexander stopped an' hed speech with
two horsemen. Ther looks of hit don't pleasure me none nuther."
"Why?" inquired Brent, and the mountaineer drew his brow into an
apprehensive furrow. "Fer a spell back, I've been watchin' these signs
with forebodin's. Alexander wasn't ridin' at no stiddy gait. She'd
walk her mule, then gallop him--then she'd pull down an' halt. These
other two riders did jest what she did--kain't ye read ther story writ
out in ther marks of them mule-irons on ther mud?"
Brent shook his head in bewilderment.
"Well, hit's all too damn plain an' hit would 'pear ter signify that
Alexander sought ter shake off two fellers thet didn't low ter be shook
off. Right hyar they all stopped, an' parleyed some."
"Why?"
"Because three mules stood hyar fer a leetle spell--ye kin see whar
they stomped, an' movin' mules don't stomp twice or thrice over ther
same spot. Then two of 'em went on gallopin'--and one went on walkin'.
Yes this is whar she got rid of 'em, but I misdoubts ef they lost sight
of her."
A little further Bud showed Brent where the two mules had turned aside
to the right and, a mile further on, where Alexander had also abandoned
the main road and gone to the left.
"She held ter ther highway a mile further then she 'lowed ter," growled
Sellers. "Thar's jest one reasonable cause fer thet. She knowed she
war bein' spied on, an' she aimed ter shake 'em off. I wonder _did_
she shake 'em off."
When they had almost reached the Gap itself and were proceeding warily
they came to a narrow ford at whose edge Bud drew rein.
"Let's pause an' study this hyar proposition out afore we rides on any
further," he suggested.
It was a particularly wild and desolate spot where the road bent so
sharply that they had turned a corner and come upon the crossing of the
water without a previous view. They had been riding toward what had
seemed a sheer wall of bluff, and that abrupt angle had brought them to
a point where the road dipped sharply down and lost itself in the
rapidly running waters of a narrow creek. On the opposite shore the
road came out again with a right-angle turn to thread its course along
a shelf of higher ground as a narrow cornice might run along a wall.
Below was a drop to the creek; above the perpendicular uplift of the
precipice.
"This hyar's ther commencement of Wolf-Pen Gap," Bud Sellers
enlightened his companion. "This is just erbout whar they aimed ter
lay-way her at. I shouldn't marvel none ef some of 'em's watchin' us
from them thickets up on thet bluff right now."
"Then let's hurry across," Brent nervously suggested. "Once we get
over the stream the cliff itself will shield us. They can't shoot
straight down."
"Oh, I reckon they don't hardly aim ter harm us," reassured Bud. "An'
anyhow we've got ter tutor this matter jest right. Thet creek's norrer
but hit's deep beyond fordin'. We needs must swim our mules acros't."
Brent shuddered at the sight of the chill water but Bud went on
inexorably. "Now, ye've got ter start as fur up es ye handily
kin--because ther current's swift--an' if hit carries yer beyond thet
small bend ye comes out in quicksand. Jest foller me. I'll go fust."
Brent had faced a number of adventures of late, but for this newest one
he had little stomach. Nevertheless, he gritted his teeth and prepared
to go ahead and follow his companion's lead, since need left no
alternative.
As Bud's mule thrust its fore-feet into the creek's edge the creature
balked and the young man kicked him viciously. Brent was waiting with
bated breath when abruptly from overhead came the clean, sharp bark of
a rifle. Brent's hat went spinning from his head and he felt the light
sting of a grazing wound along his scalp. It seemed to be in the same
instant that he heard Bud's revolver barking its retort towards the
point from which the flash had gleamed. There followed a second report
and the zip of a bullet burying itself in wood, and then he heard Bud
yelling, "Go on!"
Realizing that once across the narrow stream he would be under shelter,
he kicked and belabored his mule to the take-off. There was a downward
plunge, a floundering in the icy water, and then an unsteady sensation
as the beast struck out to swim. The current had taken its effect so
that mule and rider were being carried down channel faster than they
were gaining across, but Brent instinctively turned his head to see
what had become of his guide.
He saw an unbelievable thing. The mountaineer upon whose coolness and
courage he had absolutely relied had not ventured the crossing at all!
He had wheeled after firing and kicked his mount into wild flight,
making for the protection of the turn about which they had come. Twice
before he gained safety the rifle above spat out venomously, but missed
the fleeing target.
Such a confusion seized upon Brent that he never knew how he got across
that creek. Ahead had lain quicksand, above a rifle in the laurel and
in his own entrails an overpowering nausea of betrayed confidence. His
comrade had deserted him--had run away!
Somehow, his own mount had won across and was plodding up to solid
roadway once more and there safe, for the moment at least, he halted
and looked back.
Hoping against hope, Brent waited for five minutes with a clammy sweat
on his forehead, but there was still no sign of a returning Bud
Sellers. Then Brent unwillingly admitted that it was a pure and
unmitigated case of desertion under fire.
"My God," he groaned. "He quit me cold--quit like a dog! He simply
cut and ran!"
With a sickened heart he rode on. His head ached from the near touch
of the assassin's bullet. He was not even watching for a second
ambuscade, and fortunately for him, there was none. But with dulled
observation he passed by a place where, close to the road, a shaft ran
back into an abandoned coal mine and he followed his dejected course
without suspecting that at that moment Alexander was being held a
prisoner in the cavern to which that shaft gave access.