INDIVIDUAL RESOURCE.
A point of interest arises as to how long one determined girl armed
with a revolver can hold up three desperate men also armed and further
fortified by greed of gold. Your average tough is not greatly alarmed
by a pistol in the hands of a woman. He banks on the theory that so
long as she thinks she is aiming in his direction, he is moderately
secure from harm. It is when she is pointing at some other object fear
arises as to his safety and well being.
In this particular instance, however, there was an unusually
threatening quality in the demeanour of Jane. She trained her gun like
any artilleryman and in a manner not lightly to be dismissed by the
casual process of a rush. Added to which the position in which these
adventurers found themselves--a compact mass in a single doorway--did
not offer good opportunities for acts of individual or concerted
heroism. They formed, as it were, a unified target, the bull's-eye of
which was the centre of Alfred Bolt's immense corporation. To suppose
that any marksman, however indifferent, could fail to register a hit
upon so broad an invitation was to betray unreason.
Dirk who had had previous experience in similar situations remarked
with melancholy that the steely eyed Amazon who commanded their
destinies kept carefully out of reach of his foot. This was a pity
since he was contemplating trying the effect of kicking her on the
knee-cap, a proceeding which if performed adroitly is often fruitful of
happy results. Bolt, too, knew a very effective means of ramming his
head into the solar plexus of an adversary, but this again was a form
of attack dependent on proximity.
It was Harrison Smith's able staff work that won the day. An old
enough trick, heaven knows, but one that generally works. He waited
till her eyes were upon him, then shifted the direction of his gaze to
a point somewhere behind Jane's back and nodded very quickly.
She is hardly to be blamed for having swung round, but in the second
before she had recovered her wits and realised the bluff, the pistol
had been snatched away and the three men were pouring through the
French windows into the garden.
It was Mrs. Barraclough who caught her by the arm and prevented her
from following.
"Oh, oh, oh!" cried Jane. "I've failed, failed."
"Nonsense, my dear," said the old lady. "You girls have been just
wonderful." She pointed to an horizon of trees a mile away, where a
cloud of dust showed against the shadows. "Look what a lovely start he
has. My Anthony would never let himself be caught by a pack of
such--such----" She hesitated for lack of a word and added "Dirty
dogs" with astonishing vehemence.
"But what are we to do now?" wailed Jane.
"Let us walk down to the village church together and I don't think it
would be wrong if we said a little prayer."
They had reached the front garden when the Ford car, making a
considerable fuss about it, banged and snorted past the front gate.
There are those perhaps who will condemn Mrs. Barraclough's action, but
let them remember she was a mother. After all it stands to the credit
of any mid-Victorian lady who, notwithstanding the ravages of seventy
years, is able to pick up a flower pot and hurl it accurately into a
moving vehicle. The Reverend Prometheus Bolt caught the missile full
in the side of the head and the last view the old lady had of him was
under a shower of dirt and broken pottery, while from his lips arose a
cloud of invective more azure than the skies.
From where the car had been standing appeared Cynthia the cook. In her
hand she carried a watering can, her cheeks were flushed and her eyes
wild.
"I'd have done in their car if you'd held 'em a moment longer," she
panted indignantly. "Didn't have time to slash their tyres but I did
manage to get about half a pint of water in the petrol tank before they
slung me into the hedge."
And very valuable was the help thus afforded for within a mile the Ford
had banged and snuffled itself to a standstill and twenty minutes were
lost draining the tank and blotting up the rust coloured drops from the
bottom of the float chamber. Both Dirk and Bolt were in favour of
returning to the house in order to conduct a punitive campaign, but
Harrison Smith would not hear of this.
"We must push the damn car all we know how," he said, Working
feverishly at the union of the induction pipe with a spanner that
didn't fit. "If we haven't caught up with them by eight o'clock I
shall drop Bolt at a post office and he must get through to the Chief."
"What, the Dutchman?"
"No choice. It's infernal luck, but better that than let him get
through with the thing."
"If you ask me, Smith," said Bolt critically. "If you ask my opinion
I'd say you've made a bloomer of this show."
"You can keep your opinion till I do ask for it," came the retort.
"Get in. She's clear now."
He took a heave on the starting handle and jumped to his place at the
wheel.
"Keep your eye on those tyre marks, Dirk. If you lose 'em I'll break
your head."
And from the spirit of this remark it will be seen that kindliness and
fellowship had gone by the board.