Jerry bade Alexander farewell after depositing her parcel by the
threadbare seat of the battered day coach which was to carry her to
Perry Center, but as he said good-by, he was, for once, acting without
candor. He meant to go to Perry Center too, but being called by no
business, except to follow her, he thought it wiser to make no
announcement of his intention. When the engine wheezed and groaned to
its start. Jerry swung himself into the baggage compartment, and after
the elapse of a safe interval presented himself, grinning, in the day
coach.
The girl pretended indignation, but her wrath was neither convincing
nor terrifying. After a space she inquired, "Jerry, does ye know whar
Jack Halloway come from afore he struck this section?"
O'Keefe shook his head. "I don't jedgmatically know what creek he was
borned on, ef thet's what ye means, but I reckon hit warn't so fur
away."
Her eyes narrowed a trifle. "Does ye even know--fer sure--thet he's a
mountain man?"
Jerry laughed. "I hain't nuver heered tell of no man thet war raised
up in the settlemints claimin' ter be a benighted boomer," he answered.
"Hit's right apt ter be ther other way 'round." He paused, then
judicially added: "When a man's co'tin a gal, he gin'rally seeks ter
put hisself in ther best light he kin--not ther wust."
"Yes, thet sounds right reasonable," she admitted.
"What made ye ask, Alexander?"
After a dubious pause, she spoke hesitantly, "I jest fell ter studyin'
erbout hit. Ef I tells ye, ye mustn't never name ther matter--ter
nobody."
"I gives ye my hand on thet."
"Wa'al, Mr. Brent told me afore he left, thet ef I ever needed counsel
I should write ter him. When Jack went away, I writ--an' yestiddy I
got an answer back. My letter ter Mr. Brent asked ther same question
thet I jest put up ter _you_."
"What did Brent say?"
She was looking out of the car window with eyes that were serious and
preoccupied.
"He said he knowed all erbout him--but thet a question like thet ought
rightfully ter be put ter a man fust-handed. He bade me ask Jack
myself when he come back--but he pledged hisself ter answer all my
questions ef Jack should happen ter refuse, atter he'd hed one chanst."
The gray-blue eyes narrowed for a moment, then O'Keefe inquired, "Does
hit makes any great differ whar a man was borned at?"
"Mebby not. I just fell ter wonderin'."
"Does ye want my fam'ly Bible ter look me up in?" demanded Jerry and
the girl laughed.
But she did not tell Jerry what lay back of this whole discussion. She
did not confide to him the mystery of a coat with a patched lining.
It had been a very old coat, though at one time, long ago, a good one,
and already it had been patched and repatched. When Alexander had
picked it up that night before Halloway's departure, as she struggled
to keep her feet against the elemental surge of his whirlpool passion,
its inner breast pocket had spread a bit at the top, and her eyes had
glimpsed a discolored tailor's label--bearing the words, "New York."
That had been the thing she needed: the floating spar to one who is
drowning and it steadied her into instant resistance. She had gone to
her own room and read there the full legend--almost obliterated by
wear--almost, but not quite. Some letters and numbers were gone, but
enough were left legible.
"Mr. J. C. Halloway," was written in ink with a number on Fifth Avenue,
New York. Then there was the tailor's name and address--also on that
main thoroughfare of Fashion.
Cumberland mountain loggers do not have their clothes hand tailored in
Manhattan; and though the exact locality meant nothing to her, the town
meant much.
The label was partly ripped away from the pocket, and the girl had
snipped it loose altogether. Halloway had played a careful game. He
had avoided carrying forwarded envelopes--he had held to the vernacular
at times when sudden crisis threatened to drive him into forgetfulness.
He had overlooked only one possible precaution--that of ripping out the
tailor's trademark from his coat.
"Yes, we're right proud of thet thar wheat elevator. We all went
partners ter raise ther money fer rearin' hit," said Warwick McGivins,
as he dismounted from his old pacing mare and pointed to a huge wooden
building that stood at the edge of a bluff, from which one could drop a
rock down a sheer hundred and fifty feet.
Alexander, his niece, and Jerry O'Keefe, following suit, slid from
their saddles and the three walked through a wide gate, over a set of
wagon scales and into the yard of the huge structure.
"Kinderly looks ter me like ye'd done deesigned hit fer a fort ter
fight In'jins," suggested O'Keefe and the guide nodded his iron gray
head. "Hit don't hurt none ter hev a house like thet solid-timbered,"
he asserted. "When ther crop's in, thet buildin' holds erbout all ther
wheat thet ther passel of us fellers raises amongst us--an' we seeks
ter hev hit held safe. Thar's some car-loads in thar right now, an'
threshin' time hain't nigh over yit."
Drawing a key from his pocket he took them into the small office, and
showed them the spaciously dimensioned interior. There were no windows
save high overhead, and only two doors. One of these was a great
sliding affair where the wagons backed up, and the other was small but
equally solid. It was a huge box of heavy timber, most of it
constituting the bin itself, but the old fellow showed it proudly--nor
was his pride misplaced, for with this great cube of massive timber,
his neighbors had met and overcome a perplexing handicap of nature.
They climbed a ladder and looked down into the reservoir partly filled
with golden grain, and Jerry, noticing a coil of rope hanging from an
upright, inquired: "Did ye hev a lynchin' in hyar by way of
house-warmin'?"
McGivins laughed, but his narrative had not yet come to uses of that
rope, and he refused to be hurried.
"Ye sees," he zestfully enlightened, "we've got a sort of table land of
wheat ground hyarabouts thet raises master crops--an' we've got a
railroad runnin' right past our doors ter haul hit out ter ther world
below."
"No wonder folks hyarabouts hes got prosperity," mused Alexander a
little enviously, thinking of her rocky hillsides on Shoulder-blade.
"Yes, but ther road didn't do us no great lavish of good--'twell we
deevised this hyar thing," her uncle reminded her. "Hit jest kinderly
aggravated us. Ye see our fields lays on high ground an' ther railroad
runs through a deep chasm. We kain't git down ter hit, nigh es hit be,
withouten we teams over slavish ways fer siv'ral steep miles. Now I'll
tek ye down ther clift an' show ye what's down thar--an' how we licked
thet mountain."
He led them out and down a narrow path, where they had to hold to
branch and root until they reached the bottom of a deep ravine--and
there one hundred and fifty feet lower was another huge bin, open at
its top, and connected with the upper structure by an almost vertical
chute.
So after all it was a piece of highly creditable engineering. It
enabled the grower to weigh and store his product above, and then by
opening the runway to deposit it at the rails. In only one respect
would an engineer have quarreled with the arrangement. The long lever
that loosened and held the flowing tide of grain operated from outside
the upper building instead of from within.
"What's ter hinder a thief from comin' in ther night-time," demanded
Jerry practically, "an' runnin' hisself out a wagon-load of thet thar
stuff an' haulin' hit off?"
The elder's face fell a little.
"Thet's a far question," he acknowledged, "but we couldn't skeercely
tutor hit no otherwise--an' we keeps thet lever fastened with a chain
an' padlock."
"But how erbout ther rope," persisted O'Keefe, and the older man
explained. "Sometimes we has ter nail up loose planks inside thet
runway, an' when we does a feller lets hisself down on thet rope."
In a week, the midsummer term of the High-court would convene and the
case of the man who had wounded his neighbor would be called for trial.
The activities of possible informers became again a pregnant danger to
the erstwhile Ku-Klux operators and again a squad of men with rifles
set out to cope with the situation.
Halloway had slipped away for the time being, but the movements of
Jerry and Alexander had been duly watched and reported. It did not
altogether please the men charged with this new duty to operate about
Perry Center. They would have preferred the wilder territory adjacent
either to Shoulder-blade creek or to Coal City, but the thing must be
accomplished and all matters are relative. If Perry Center lay in a
smoother country it was still mountain country and wild enough if one
were careful.
On an evening gorgeously alight with a full moon, Jerry came to the
McGivins' house as was his custom. These were times when he did not
have to consider sharing the right of way with a rival, and he was
availing himself of his undisputed respite.
Shadows of deep purple-blue lay everywhere like velvet islands in the
silver flood of the moon's radiance. Through the timbered slopes came
the soft cadences of the night's minstrels--the voices of frogs and
katydids and the plaintive call of the whippoorwills.
Alexander had been deeply reflective as she sat with her lovely chin
resting on one hand, listening to the low-pitched voice in which her
lover was pleading his cause.
"I kain't be sure--not yit," was her uncertain response to all his
argument.
They saw a shadow fall across the lighted doorway at their backs, and
heard the somewhat disturbed voice of Warwick McGivins.
"I've got ter go over thar ter ther wheat elevator, I reckon. I kain't
find ther key nowhars an' I mistrusts I left hit in ther door when I
war weighin' up wheat this evening; I'll jest leave ther two of ye hyar
fer a spell."
Jerry rose obligingly to his feet. "I reckon my legs is a few y'ars
younger than yourn," he announced cheerfully. "I'll jest teck my foot
in my hand and light out fer over thar. Hit hain't but a whoop an' a
holler distant nohow."
"Hit's a right purty night," volunteered Alexander, in a voice of vague
restlessness. "I don't kinderly feel like settin' still. I'll go
along with ye, Jerry."
The young man's eyes brightened delightedly. It had been a strain on
his innate courtesy to surrender so much of his moonlight evening with
Alexander, and now he had his reward. There had been an unrest in her
eyes to-night--yet somehow he had felt her nearer to him in thought,
and his bruised feelings were stirring into fresh hope.
Together they started out, and under the spell of the night's
graciousness one of those silences that seem a bond of sympathy fell
between them.
The way led for a while along the high road, then turned off into the
woods, where the rhododendron was massed thick. Here there was more of
the velvet shadow and less of the direct moonlight, but through the
open spaces that, too, fell in filtering patterns of platinum
brightness.
Once Jerry halted abruptly and stood listening, then he went on again.
"I heered hit too," said Alexander understandingly, for in the hills
one pauses to question unexplained sounds in the night time. "I reckon
hit war some varmint stirring."
The route they had taken led along the margin of the bluff, and when
they were close to the elevator, walking single file, with Alexander in
the lead, the serenity broke with the malignant sharpness of a barking
rifle.
Jerry heard the whining flight of the bullet that had missed his head
by inches, and as though in obedience to a single nerve impulse, both
the girl and the man fell flat to the better concealment of the ground,
and edged back into the sootily shadowed laurel.
"We've got need ter separate," whispered Jerry, with his lips brushing
her ear. "I aims ter git inside ther elevator--and hold 'em off. You
hasten down over ther cliff an' work back ter ther house. I reckon
hit's me they wants, but I'll endure 'twell ye brings help."
Without wasting a needless word or breath in argument, Alexander began
noiselessly twisting her way towards the brow of the precipice.
Jerry's heart was pounding with terror lest she be discovered--and to
divert from her an attention that might prove fatal, he recklessly rose
and leaped across a spot of moonlight, making a fleeting target, which
brought from two separate sources responses of riflery.
The man knew now that whoever his assailants might be they were out in
force and in earnest. Cautiously he worked his way along the shadows,
his luck still holding until finally he had reached his point of
vantage within a few yards of the open gate that led to the elevator
itself. To gain that haven he must dash for it across a band of
unmasked moonlight. Once inside, he had only to wait for the relief of
reinforcements.
To the right and left of him, and from several spots at once, O'Keefe
heard stirrings in the thicket. There must be a sizable pack out on
the hunt and he surmised that they were making those unnecessary noises
with the purpose of drawing his fire and bringing him into revealment
by the spurt of his pistol.
The door of the elevator itself stood partly in the moonlight. Jerry
O'Keefe could see the dull glitter that he knew to be the key--and
could even make out--or so he thought--that the door stood an inch or
two ajar.
Of that he was not quite certain--and it was a vitally important point.
If the lock was not caught, he might get in before he could be killed.
If he had to fumble with a key, his end was certain.
Jerry drew himself together and made the dive. Four rifles spoke in
unison and four bullets imbedded themselves in the heavy timbers of the
great building as he hurled himself against the door, and felt it give
laxly under his weight.
He had not fired a shot and between himself and his enemies stood the
staunchness of walls against which their rifle bullets would pelt as
harmlessly as hailstones. Except for his anxiety about Alexander he
might have lighted his pipe and waited with a contented spirit.
Indeed, a slow smile did shape itself on his face, but a startled
thought wiped it away as swiftly and completely as a wet sponge
obliterates writing on a slate. That thought left his expression as
black as a slate too.
Jerry drew his pistol, and for a moment it was in his mind to open the
door and go out again.
When he had sent the girl away for reinforcements it had not occurred
to him that this ambuscade might be intended to include her as well as
himself. He had thought that, once apart from him, unless mistaken for
him in the dark, she could walk safely. Indeed he had been at a total
loss to explain, in any way, the motive of the attack.
Now it had flashed upon him that it was somehow an outgrowth of the old
robbery attempt--and if that were true as high a price lay on the
girl's head as upon his own. She was out there alone and in all
likelihood unarmed.
Jerry O'Keefe broke into a cold sweat of panic--and he sat with his
ears strained for a pistol shot--a shout--any indication that might
call him across the moonlight zone beyond the door to her defense.
But the stillness of the midsummer night had settled again, except for
the voices of the whippoorwill and the katydid.
By this time, he tried to reassure himself, Alexander had made her way
down into the gorge and was beyond the touch of danger.
But that was not true. The girl had need to move with such silence as
should break no twig and rustle no shrub. She must twist along a
course that avoided the patches of moonlight, weaving her slow way in
and out. Deliberation now was hard, but it would mean greater and more
effective haste later on. She had even paused, crouching, with inheld
breath, at a spot from which she could watch the door of the elevator,
until Jerry had made his dash. With a heart swollen and strained by
dread almost to bursting, she had seen him shoot across the exposed
area and burst through the door--and she had heard the fusilade that
resented his escape.
Or was it escape? He had plunged through the dark opening much as a
falling man might go. But now safe, wounded or dead, he was inside and
they could not reach him, so it behooved her to use wary care to the
end that she might bring him help.
But as Alexander came to the two large boulders between which she meant
to start down into the gorge she was arrested by a flicker of light
there. The rock shielded from view the man who seemed to be kindling a
pine torch, but the flare had warned her in time to make her crouch low
and consider her course. That path which she had chosen was cut off.
Then, low and guarded voices stole across to her with the light.
"War's ther gal? She didn't git inside too, did she?"
"No, 'pears like she's done hid away--but I reckon they'll diskiver her
afore she gits far."
"Don't let's waste no time, then. Ye've done splashed coal-oil on ther
corner of ther warehouse, hain't ye?"
"Yes."
"Wa'al, come on. Ye've got yore torch ready. Let's tech her off. He
thinks he's safe enough inside thar, but right shortly he'll sing
another tune."
Alexander fell, for a moment, into a tremor and chill of wild panic.
Suddenly as a revelation, yet beyond all shadow of doubt, she knew that
the man who was doomed to a certain and most horrible death was, to
her, the person of supreme consequence in all the world. The dynamic
qualities of Halloway were nothing and less than nothing, now. She
wanted for always that gentle strength and whimsical smile that were
soon to be licked up in flame and torture. If this man were not saved
she could, herself, no longer endure to live--and there was no way of
saving him!
While Alexander crouched there with her blood congealed she saw the
torch applied, saw its flame leap ravenously to the welcome of the
kerosene and secure a hold upon the building itself as sure and
tenacious as the grip of a bulldog's clamped jaws.
The plotters who fired the elevator showed her only their backs.
How long would it be before the man inside recognized the acrid odor
and realized his fate? What would he do then? Presumably he would
dash for the door, and there both flame and rifle fire would be
awaiting him.
The incendiaries had now passed around the corner of the house and the
moonlight fell upon the long chute which ran almost vertically down to
the railway tracks below. Into Alexander's mind shot a desperate
resolution. It offered a slender chance at best--yet the only one.
Still for a moment, she questioned it. There were so many ways that it
might turn out--and of them all, one only could possibly end in success.
Then she slipped over to the great handle that controlled the flow of
grain, locked into place with its chain and padlock. If she were seen
she would, of course, be killed, but the murder crew seemed to have
massed at the front of the place now, watching the door, until the fire
should take that task off their hands. The flames were crackling loud
enough now to cover the noise which must attend her next move--and to
afford her a light for her work.
A heavy iron bar lay on the ground and with it the girl forced the
chain and bent all her strength to the great lever that should launch
the stored wheat into its quicksand flow. She flung her good muscles
and her substantial weight so fiercely into that effort that the shaft
snapped at its fulcrum--but not until it had done its work.
Alexander rushed for the brow of the cliff, and this time she was not
obstructed. The relaxed vigilance of a job well done had stolen upon
the watchers.
The journey down the precipice was one that had its difficulties, and
Alexander's brain was reeling with a score of terrors--yet somehow she
reached the tracks.
O'Keefe would not be in the wheat bin itself, she reflected. It would
be dark in there too--until the light became a glare of death. Unless
he chanced to hear, through other and fiercer sounds the soft flow of
the myriad kernels, he would have no means of knowing that one
desperate way was being opened to him. Even then his single hope would
lie in quickness of perception and a sureness of judgment that acted
flawlessly and smoothly under a supreme strain.
If he did see that the wheat was running out and did not wait for it
all to spill itself, he would be sucked into its tide only to emerge
dead. For it flowed slowly, pressing in every direction, and it would
inevitably strangle the breath out of his lungs.
Even if he were judging all these odds with a meticulous nicety,
Alexander questioned herself breathlessly, would there be time to wait
for the full store to flow through that narrow channel? It was a race
between a slow tide which could not be hurried and another which rushed
on with the devouring fury of mania.
The girl threw herself down beside an empty freight car and dug her
cold finger nails into her hot temples. She could hear the steady
stream of wheat flowing into the bin there, and the deadly slowness of
its progress through the hopper was driving her mad. The elevator she
could not see, but by lifting her head, she could see out all too
clearly the crimson sky overhead.