"Put them down!" said Grant, with a little impatient gesture; Breckenridge
let the weapons fall but he was pleased to see the cook, who now stood at
the foot of the stairway, slip softly forward and pick up one of them.
Grant was looking at the door and did not see the man move back half-way
up the stairs as silently as he came.
Once more a hoarse shout rose from outside: "Open that door before we
break it in!"
For a moment or two, as if to give point to the warning, the door creaked
and rattled as the axe-heads beat upon it, and then the din ceased
suddenly, for Grant, who recognized the voice, raised his hand.
"Open it for them," he said, so loudly that he could be heard outside.
Breckenridge was almost glad to obey. It would have pleased him better to
have taken his place, rifle in hand, with the cook on the stairway, but
since Grant had evidently determined not to oppose the assailants'
entrance by violence, it was a relief to do anything that would terminate
the suspense. Still, his heart throbbed painfully as he seized the bolt,
and he glanced round once more in what he felt was futile protest. Grant,
who evidently saw what he was thinking in his face, only smiled a little
and signed with his hand.
Breckenridge drew the bolt, and sprang backwards as the door swung open.
Men with axes and rifles showed up in the light; but while here and there
an axe flashed back a twinkling gleam, or a face shone white, the rest was
blurred and shadowy, and he could only see hazy figures moving against the
blackness of the night. His companion was standing alone in the middle of
the hall, motionless and impassive, with nothing in his hands.
"Now," he said, in a voice that jarred on Breckenridge's ears, "the door
is open. What do you want?"
"We want you," said one of the men outside.
"Then, I'll come out and talk to you," said Grant.
Breckenridge laid a restraining hand upon his arm, but he shook it off,
and moving forward stopped just outside the threshold. The lad could not
see his face, but he noticed that he stood very straight, with his head
thrown back a trifle, and that one or two of those without edged farther
into the shadowy crowd. Glancing behind him, he also saw the cook leaning
forward on the stairway with the rifle glinting in his hands.
"Well?" said Grant, and his voice rang commandingly.
"We have come for the dollars," said a man. "We want them, and they're
ours."
"Then, you must ask your committee for them. They are not in my house."
"Bluff!" said somebody; and an angry clamour broke out.
"Hand them out," cried one voice, "before we burn the place for you."
Larry swung up one hand commandingly, and Breckenridge felt a thrill of
pride when, as if in tribute to his comrade's fearlessness, a sudden
silence followed. Larry stood alone, statuesque in poise, with arm
stretched out in the face of the hostile crowd, and once more the respect
the men had borne him asserted itself.
"You will listen to me, boys, and it may be the last time I shall speak to
you," he said. "You know that right back from the beginning I have done
the best I could for you, and now I feel it in me that if you will wait
just a little longer the State will do more than I could ever do. Can't
you understand that if you go round destroying railroad-trestles, shooting
cattle, and burning ranches, you are only playing into the hand of your
enemies, and the very men in the legislature who would, if you kept your
patience, make your rights sure to you, will be forced to turn the cavalry
loose on you? Can't you sit tight another month or two, instead of
throwing all we have fought for away?"
The silence that followed the speech lasted for a space of seconds, and
then, when Breckenridge hoped Grant might still impose prudence upon the
crowd, there were murmurs of doubt and suspicion. They grew rapidly
louder, and a man stepped out from the rest.
"The trouble is that we don't believe in you, Larry," he said. "You were
with us solid one time, but that was before the cattle-barons bought
you."
A derisive laugh followed, and when Grant turned a little Breckenridge saw
his face. The bronze in it had faded, and left paler patches, that seemed
almost grey, while the lad, who knew his comrade's pride and uprightness,
fancied he could guess how that taunt, made openly, had wounded him.
"Well," he said, very slowly, "I can only hope you will have more
confidence in your next leader; but I am on the list of the executive
still, and if the house was full of dollars I wouldn't give you one of
them with which to make trouble that you'll most surely be sorry for. Any
way, those I had are safe in a place where, while your committee keep
their heads, you will not lay hands on them."
A shout of disbelief was followed by uproar, through which there broke
detached cries: "Pull him down! He has them all the time! Pound them out
of him! Burn the place down for a warning to the cattle-men!"
They died away when one of the men, with emphatic gestures, demanded
attention. Moving out from the rest, he turned to Grant. "You have rifles
and cartridges here, and after all, those are what we want the most.
Now--and it's your last chance--hand them out."
"No," said Grant.
The man made a little gesture of resignation. "Boys," he said, "you will
have to go in and take them."
Grant still stood motionless and unyielding on his threshold, but he had
only a moment's grace, for the men outside surged on again, and one swung
a rifle-butt over him. Breckenridge saw his comrade seize it, and had
sprung to his side when a rifle flashed on the stairway behind him and a
man cried out and fell. The next instant another rifle-butt whirled, and
Grant, reeling sideways, went down and was trampled on.
Breckenridge ran towards the rifle still lying in the hall, but before he
could reach it there was a roar of voices and a rush of feet, and the men
who poured in headlong were upon him. Something hard and heavy smote him
in the face, and as he reeled back gasping there was another flash on the
stairway. His head struck something, and he was never sure of what
happened during the next half-hour.
When, feeling very dizzy, Breckenridge raised himself in the corner where
he had been lying, the hall was empty save for two huddled figures in the
doorway, and while he blinked at them in a half-dazed fashion, it seemed
to him that a red glare, which rose and fell, shone in. He could also
smell burning wood, and saw dim wreaths of smoke drive by outside. His
hearing was not especially acute just then, but he fancied that men were
trampling, and apparently dragging furniture about, all over the building.
Then, as his scattered senses came back to him, he rose feebly to his
feet, and finding to his astonishment that he still possessed the power of
locomotion, walked unevenly towards the motionless objects in the doorway.
One of them, as he expected, was Grant, who was lying very white and
still, just as he had fallen.
"Larry," Breckenridge said, and shivered at the sound of his own voice.
"Larry!"
But there was no answer, and Breckenridge sat down by Grant's side with a
little groan, for his head swam once more and he felt a horrible coldness
creeping over him. How long he sat there, while the smoke that rolled in
from outside grew denser, he did not know; but by and by he was dimly
conscious that the men were coming down the stairway. They clustered about
him, and one of them, stooping over the injured homesteader, signed to his
comrades.
"Put him into the wagon, and start off at once," he said.
Three or four men came out from the rest, and when they shuffled away with
their burden, the one who seemed to be leader pointed to Grant as he
turned to Breckenridge.
"He would have it, and the thump on the head he got would have put an end
to most men," he said. "Still, I don't figure you need worry about burying
him just yet, and I want a straight answer. Are those dollars in the
house?"
Breckenridge sat blinking at him a moment, and then very shakily dragged
himself to his feet, and stood before the man, with one hand clenched. His
face was white and drawn and there was a red smear on his forehead.
"If you would not believe the man who lies there, will you take my word?"
he said unevenly. "He told you they were not."
"I guess he spoke the truth," said somebody. "Any way, we can't find them.
Well, what is to be done with him?"
Breckenridge, who was not quite himself, laughed bitterly. "Leave him
where he is, and go away. You have done enough," he said. "He gave you all
he had--and I know, as no other man ever will, what it cost him--and this
is how you have repaid him."
Some of the men looked confused, and the leader made a deprecatory
gesture. "Any way, we'll give you a hand to put him where you want."
Breckenridge waved him back fiercely. "I am alone; but none of you shall
lay a hand on him while I can keep you off. If you have left any life in
him, the touch of your fingers would hurt him more than anything."
The other man seemed to have a difficulty in finding an answer, and while
he stared at Breckenridge there was a trample of hoofs in the mire
outside, and a shout. Breckenridge could not catch its meaning, but the
men about him streamed out of the hall and he could hear them mounting in
haste. As the rapid beat of hoofs gradually died away, looking up at a
sound, he saw the cook bending over his comrade. The man, seeing in his
eyes the question he dared not ask, shook his head.
"No, I guess they haven't killed him," he said. "Kind of knocked all the
senses out of him; and now I've let the rest out, we'll get him to bed."
"The rest?" Breckenridge asked bewildered.
The man nodded. "Yes," he said, "I guess I got one or two of the
homestead-boys, and then Charley and I lit out through a back window, and
slipped round to see why the stockboys weren't coming. It was quite
simple. The blame firebugs had put a man with a rifle at the door of their
sleeping shed."
Three or four other men trooped in somewhat sheepishly, though, as the
cook had explained, it was not their fault they had arrived after the
fight was over; and while they carried their master upstairs Breckenridge
thought he heard another beat of hoofs. He paid no great attention to it,
but when Larry had been laid on the bed glanced towards the window at the
streaks of flame breaking through the smoke that rolled about a birch-log
building.
"What can be done?" he said.
"I don't know that we can do anything," answered the cook. "The fire has
got too good a holt, but it's not likely to light anything else the way
the wind is. It was one of them blame Chicago rustlers put the firestick
in."
"Pshaw!" said Breckenridge. "Let it burn. I mean, what can be done for
Larry?"
"We might give him some whiskey--only we haven't any. Still, I've seen
this kind of thing happen in the Michigan lumber-camps, and I guess he's
most as well without it. You want to give a man's brains time to settle
down after they've had a big shake-up."
Breckenridge sat down limply on the foot of the bed, faint and dizzy, and
wondering if he really heard a regular, rhythmic drumming through the
snapping of the flame. It grew louder while he listened, and a faint
musical jingling became audible with it.
"That sounds like cavalry," the cook said. "They have been riding round
and seen the blaze."
And a few minutes later a voice rose sharply outside, and some, at least,
of the riders pulled up. The cook, at a sign from Breckenridge, went down,
and came back by and by with a man in bespattered blue uniform.
"Captain Cheyne, United States cavalry--at your service," he said. "I am
afraid I have come a trifle late to be of much use; but a few of my men
are trying to pick up the rustlers' trail. Now, how did that man get hurt,
and what is the trouble about?"
Breckenridge told him as concisely as he could, and Cheynes bent over the
silent figure on the bed.
"Quietness is often good in these cases; but there is such a thing as
collapse following the shock, and I guess by your friend's face it might
be well to try to rouse him," he said. "Have you any brandy?"
"No," said Breckenridge. "It has been quite a time since we had that or
any other luxuries in this house. Its owner stripped himself for the
benefit of the men who did their best to kill him."
Cheyne brought out a flask. "This should do as well," he said. "You can
tell that man to boil some water, and in the meanwhile help me to get the
flask top into your partner's mouth."
It was done with some difficulty, and Breckenridge waited anxiously until
a quiver ran through the motionless body. Then Cheyne repeated the dose,
and Larry gasped and slowly opened his eyes. He said something the others
could not catch, and closed them again; but Breckenridge fancied a little
warmth crept into his pallid skin.
"I guess that will do," said Cheyne. "In one or two of my stations we had
to be our own field hospital; but I don't know enough of surgery to take
the responsibility of stirring up his circulation any further. Still, when
you can get them ready, we will have hot bottles at his feet."
"My boys have got the fire under," Cheyne said, coming in an hour later.
"Now, I have been in the saddle most of the day, and while your cook has
promised to billet the boys, I'll have to ask you for shelter. If you told
me a little about what led up to this trouble, it might pass the time."
"I don't see why I should," Breckenridge informed him.
"It could not hurt you, any way," suggested Cheyne, "and it might do you
good."
Breckenridge looked at him steadily, and felt a curious confidence in the
discretion of the quiet, bronze-faced man. As the result of it, he told
him a good deal more than he had meant to do when he commenced the story.
"I think you have done right," Cheyne said. "A little rough on him! I had
already figured he was that kind of a man. Well, I hear the rest of the
boys coming back, and I'll send up a sergeant who knows a good deal about
these accidents to look after him."
The sergeant came up by and by and kept watch with Breckenridge for a
while; but, after an hour or so Breckenridge's head grew very heavy, and
the sergeant, taking his arm, silenced his protests by nipping it and
quietly put him out of the room. When he awoke next morning he found that
Grant was capable at least of speech, for Cheyne was asking him questions,
and receiving very unsatisfactory answers.
"In fact," said the cavalry officer, "you don't feel disposed to tell me
who the men that tried to burn your place were, or anything about them?"
"No," Larry said feebly. "It would be pleasanter if you concluded I was
not quite fit to talk just now."
Cheyne glanced at Breckenridge, who was watching him anxiously. "In that
case I could not think of worrying you, and have no doubt I can find out.
In the meanwhile I guess the best thing you can do is to go to sleep
again."
He drew Breckenridge out of the room, and shook hands with him. "If you
are wanted I'll send for you," he said. "Keep your comrade quiet, and I
should be astonished if he is not about again in a day or two."
Then, he went down the stairway and swung himself into the saddle, and
with a rattle and jingle he and the men behind him rode away.