THE BATTLE IN THE SNOW
Both Mildred Kent and Lettie Parker believed with the latter’s father
that the explosions of the engine near them in the storm meant that Dan
and Billy Speedwell were near at hand.
The girls, tossing aside the sheltering robe and the accumulation of
snow, stood up, too, and clinging to each other shrieked their boy
friends’ names into the sounding gale.
Their own cries might not have carried very far, save in the lulls of
the tempest; but with the voices of Mr. Parker and the sheriff, they
raised a cry that was certainly heard by whoever was working the motor
iceboat through the blizzard.
The “put-put-put” came nearer. A hoarse hail reached the ears of the
quartette in the sleigh.
Mr. Kimball had brought his horses to a dead stop. Indeed, the beasts
were glad to breathe, although they were far from exhaustion. No better
pair of colts, as Mr. Kimball said, were to be found in the county.
“I don’t hear that engine now,” cried Mr. Parker. “Have they stopped?”
He called again, then waited for an answer. The snow seemed to have
smothered the sounds. Again Mildred and Lettie shrieked the names of Dan
and Billy. They had every confidence in the boys being able to help them
if they only heard.
There was another answer—this time nearer. “Got ’em!” cried the
delighted Mr. Parker.
“I don’t just see how they are going to help us,” grumbled Mr. Kimball.
“Dan will find a way,” asserted Mildred, now the most hopeful of the
quartette.
The next moment a figure appeared in the swirling snow. But it was not
Dan or Billy. It was much too tall for either.
“Hullo, there!” exclaimed the stranger, in a very hoarse voice. “What’s
the matter here?”
A second figure appeared before either Mr. Parker or the sheriff could
answer. The second man said, quite as roughly as the first:
“Gals, by thunder! And a fine pair o’ horses, Tom.”
“You hit it right, Jake,” said the first man. “And just what we
want—hey?”
“I wouldn’t try ter go on in that blamed old scooter—not much! And we
won’t have to lug the box.”
“Shut up!”
“Aw, it’s all right. This _is_ luck——”
The sheriff interposed suddenly. “I take it you fellows consider that
your meeting with us is providential; don’t you?”
“Huh?” growled the first speaker. “You’re slingin’ fine language, I
guess. What we means ter do is ter take the sled an’ the hosses. That’s
all. And there won’t be room for youse gents—or the gals.”
“Why, you scoundrel!” exclaimed Mr. Parker. “What do you mean?”
“Cut that out!” commanded the man called Tom, stepping quickly to the
county clerk’s side of the sleigh.
Lettie screamed. The man grabbed Mr. Parker by the collar and dragged
him out of the sleigh. Mr. Parker shouted aloud in his anger, and tried
to grapple with the man, but was struck a hard blow with a short club,
or piece of gas pipe, by the other man. For the moment he was knocked
almost senseless.
The sheriff was not frightened, however. He dropped the reins and leaped
to the ice, where the snow was now almost knee deep.
“Get down in the sleigh, girls—down!” he commanded. “Look out for
bullets! Hands up, you two fellows—put your hands up, quick! Quick, I
tell you, or I’ll fire!”
He had drawn a pistol and his tone was so earnest that the men must have
known that he would use it. They were amazed for the moment.
“I am the sheriff of this county. I believe you are two fellows for whom
I have been looking. Tom Davis—Scar-Faced Tom—I recognize you from the
warden’s description. You were discharged from the Meadville
penitentiary only a week ago, and it looks very much to me as though you
were going back there again.”
The man whom the sheriff addressed—the redoubtable “Scar-Faced Tom”—was
not a little cowed by the sheriff’s speech—and extremely so by the
business-like look of the revolver. But while Mr. Kimball kept this
fellow under surveillance, and Mr. Parker was still lying stunned in the
snow, the other fellow dived into the darkness and the storm, yelling
for the third, who had remained with the motor iceboat.
The sheriff sent a pistol ball after him; but he would better have
refrained. Tom Davis, seizing his opportunity (as he thought) made a
great stride for the sheriff as the flame of the discharged revolver
flashed right over his shoulder.
Davis would have had Kimball by the throat had it not been for the
county clerk. The latter struggled to a sitting posture just at the
right moment, and seized the villain’s ankle. He twisted it and,
roaring, the man went down.
Sheriff Kimball tossed his pistol to Mr. Parker, and jumped on the
fallen robber’s back. His attack was so unexpected that the other was
helpless and it seemed as though the sheriff was going to make one
capture, at least, without much trouble.
Mildred and Lettie were about as scared as they could be. The firing of
the sheriff’s pistol, and the rough tones and fighting seemed terrible
to both the doctor’s daughter and her chum.
Once Mildred had been troubled by tramps in the swamp up near Karnac
Lake; but Dan had rescued her at that time. So it was not strange that
now she should cry aloud:
“Oh, dear, me! I wish Dan were here.”
“And I’d like to know what’s got Billy Speedwell!” rejoined her chum.
“Do you suppose these awful men have stolen the boys’ new iceboat?”
“Oh! they’re wicked enough to do anything,” gasped Mildred.
Mr. Parker was staggering to the sheriff’s assistance. But before he
reached him he dropped the pistol in the snow. In the darkness and storm
it was not easy to find the weapon again; and while he was scrambling
about on all fours to obtain it, two figures dashed out of the smother
and fell upon him. The second robber and his mate had returned.
They overpowered Mr. Parker in a moment. Then they hauled Mr. Kimball
off the prostrate ex-convict; but in that minute the sheriff had choked
the fellow into subjection.
He could not rise to help his comrades. Mr. Parker and the sheriff faced
but two of the gang, but the latter had the advantage.
Mr. Parker was not used to such rough work. The sheriff, however, was a
quick and agile man, ready for almost any emergency which might arise.
He was, too, one of those men who “never give up till the last gun is
fired.” He kept on fighting, and the two robbers found him hard to
subdue. Suddenly Mr. Parker went down under a swing of the blackjack
that had previously felled him.
“Oh! my father! My father!” shrieked Lettie, who was peering over the
back of the sleigh. “Billy! Billy Speedwell! Why don’t you help us?”
She screamed this last question at the top of her voice, and it did not
go unanswered. First aroused by the explosions of the motor iceboat
engine, and led on by the shouting of the girls and their guardians in
the sleigh, the two Speedwell boys and Dummy had come near to the scene
of the battle in the snow just as the sheriff fired his pistol.
The boys recognized the girls’ voices, and also Mr. Parker’s.
“Mildred!” exclaimed Dan, in amazement. “She’s in trouble.”
“And that’s Let—as sure as shooting!” agreed Billy. “And her father.”
Dummy said nothing, but he kept on with his new friends—and he had to
travel some to keep up with them. For neither the wind nor the snow
retarded the Speedwells just then.
As the two robbers sprang upon Mr. Parker and the sheriff for the second
time, Dan, Billy, and Dummy appeared. The Speedwells gave a great shout
and plunged into the affray, swinging their clubs. Dummy kept in the
rear, but he helped some in the end. The man, Tom Davis, whom the
sheriff had overpowered, began to stir. The Dummy ran to him and
threatened him with the club he had brought from the cave on Island
Number One.
The battle in the blizzard was soon over. The three rascals were down in
the snow, rubbing their heads, and begging for mercy almost as soon as
reinforcements in shape of the three boys appeared.
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