his pillow; and after locking the door, leading from the chamber into
the hall, kicked his slippers across the room, finished his disrobing,
and tumbled into bed. "There it comes!" he drowsily murmured, as a
stronger gust of wind was followed by a few scattering drops, and
then by a driving dash of rain. "Well, it'll rain itself out before
morning; to-morrow's _got_ to be a good day. H'm! it's pretty quiet
out here! I'm sick and tired of this suburban business; think I'll
have to set up bachelor-rooms in town, after the family gets back."
And with this resolve--which he later carried into effect--he fell
asleep, with the fingers of one hand lightly and comfortably resting
upon the butt of his pistol.
For more than an hour the rain fell heavily; then, as suddenly as it
had begun, it ceased. With it the wind died away, leaving a silence
so intense that when the hall clock gave out two resonant strokes the
sound echoed and reëchoed through the house. Ten minutes later the
deep quiet was broken by a sharp crack, as of splintering wood, and
then, for a time, all again was still.
Now, Pollard sleeps lightly, and the unusual sound, insignificant
though it was, started him up upon his elbow, with eyes wide open
and ears strained to catch the slightest creak or jar. Three minutes
passed. He was about to relax his motionless position of listening,
when there came to his ear a muffled noise that made him slip
cautiously, revolver in hand, from bed.
"Shoving up a sash, by thunder!" he said to himself. "It's lucky that
I came out, instead of going to a hotel as I thought of doing. Let's
see what's going on."
He crept to the door, pressed his ear to the thin panel, and listened;
but after a few seconds he straightened up, and disgustedly addressed
himself thus: "See here, Pollard--_Captain_ Pollard!--what sort
of soldier are you? Your heart's thumping so that you can't hear
anything else, and your knees are about as near wobbling as they well
can be without doing it! I know you're not afraid--but what _is_ the
matter with you?" Again he put his ear to the door, and this time
distinctly heard from below sounds which plainly indicated that some
one was at work in the dining-room.
"Now, I'd give something," thought the silent listener at the door,
"to know just how my side of this campaign ought to be conducted.
In the first place, I'd be a heap sight more courageous if I had
on my trousers and shoes. I'm no Highlander; I'm just an ordinary
citizen-soldier--and if I've got to go into action I'd much prefer to
form for the attack in less light-marching-order than this. But if I
leave the door--confound it all!--I'll lose touch with the enemy. I
want my clothes, but I _must_ know what's being done down there."
Still keeping to his post at the door he noiselessly cocked and
uncocked his weapon, in order to make sure that the cylinder freely
revolved. Below, for a moment, all was quiet; then came a sound which
Pollard interpreted to be the metallic clink of hastily gathered
silverware. "That'll keep 'em busy for a moment," he thought, leaving
the door, "and I'll have time to put on my armor. There isn't
much stuff in the sideboard--only a few spoons and forks. Lucky
that we sent the bulk of the silver in to the vaults! Here are my
trousers--and here's one slipper--where in glory's the mate to it? Oh,
if I only find it I'll make a vow to put my foot-gear, after this,
under my pillow every night!" For an instant longer he cautiously
pawed around in the darkness, but the missing slipper refused to be
found, and so, half-shod, he crept back to the door to resume his
listening.
The startled feeling that had come upon him when so suddenly awakened
had gone, and he was perfectly cool and determined. "Well, what's
the next move?" he asked himself, as he stood listening to the faint
sounds below. "So long as I stay here I'm safe enough, but it seems a
trifle white-feathery to let 'em have full swing down there, without
lifting a finger to spoil their sport. Of course I can scare 'em out
of the house easily enough--a couple of thumps on the floor would do
it--but I want a _shot_ for my money. What sort of good were old
Bones' 'Emergency Lectures'? I went to 'em all, last winter, and yet
here's an emergency--and I don't know exactly what to do with it!"
For a time there had been a cessation in the noises below stairs, but
suddenly Pollard became aware of stealthy footfalls, and then the
stairs lightly creaked under an ascending tread.
"They're coming up!" he said to himself; "more than one of 'em,
too--I can tell by the sound! Well, this campaign's planned itself
out now. I'm going to fight on inside lines," and gently disengaging
his slippered foot from its encumbrance, he stole barefooted into the
outer room, and took his station at the door.
"Now, this is going to be almost _too_ easy; and all because the
inspired architect who planned this house saw fit to locate a
push-button in the wall, just outside!" thought Pollard, as there
came to his ear a subdued whispering which indicated that the
intruders had reached the head of the stairs, and had paused for a
short consultation. "I'll just try a pot-shot at these gentlemen from
inside here; and then--when they break for downstairs--step out,
touch up the light in the lower hall, and halt 'em where they stand."
Softly falling back a couple of paces, he pointed his pistol towards
the door, and fired. In the confined air of the closed room the report
was deafening, and Pollard's ears rang merrily, when--taking it for
granted that his visitors must be in full retreat--he sprang to open
the door and put into execution the remaining part of his plan of
operations. In clumsy haste he groped in the darkness for the key; but
at that instant a shot rang out in the hall, and a bullet tore its
way through the panel of the door and embedded itself in the opposite
wall, making a most unexpected interruption in the programme that he
had laid out for himself to follow.
"Stay where y' are--_d' yer hear?_--stay where y' are," commanded a
hoarse voice from without, "while we're gettin' clear, or I'll blow
yer blasted head off, yer--" here came a burst of abusive profanity
that sent Pollard's blood to the boiling-point.
"All right; but get out lively!" said he, still keeping his hand upon
the key, but swinging to one side in order to be out of direct range
of the frail door. At the words, a second bullet came splintering
through the wood, as if to give emphasis to the remarks which so had
annoyed him, and then there followed a noisy rush of feet down the
stairs.
Without an instant's hesitation Pollard wrenched open the door, jumped
into the hall, and calling, "Up with your hands!" set ablaze the gas
in the chandelier below. Midway of the stairs, as he stood in the
shadow of the upper landing, he saw the two marauders, who had been
checked in their flight by the unexpected burst of light.
"Come--_up with those hands!_" said Pollard sternly, levelling
his weapon, "or I'll blow _your_ blasted--" but the sentence was
left incomplete, for with cat-like swiftness one of the men turned
and fired at him. But Pollard, heavily built though he is, can be
quickness itself when occasion demands, and at the flash of the
other's revolver his own weapon spoke sharply, sending a cruel bit
of lead ploughing its way through flesh and sinew and bone. With a
gasp of pain the man at whom he had fired reeled over against the
balusters, and, as his shattered arm fell helplessly at his side, his
smoking pistol dropped from his grasp and went clattering down the
stairway.
"Have you got enough?" said Pollard, swinging over his weapon, and
covering the unwounded burglar. "There's more of the same sort where
that came from--if you want it!"
"_Don't shoot again!_" said the second man, throwing up his hands. "We
give in!"
"Thereby showing more sense than you've shown yet," returned the
barefooted master of the situation, coming forward a few steps. "Now,
listen to me. Take your pal down to that big leather chair in the
corner of the hall--and don't make any fatal mistake by trying to pick
up that gun on the stairs!"
"And now," he went on, following the doleful procession downstairs,
"get his coat off, and see how badly he's hit. Bone's broken, eh? H'm!
that's pretty bad! Well, get to work to stop the bleeding; I'll tell
you how," and under his directions the wounded arm was bandaged up in
a rough, though effective fashion.
"And what'll I do with you _now_?" said Pollard reflectively, as he
stood looking at the two crestfallen intruders. "What's that? 'I shot
first!' Well, that's so; but I also shot last--and best. It's no use;
I've got to turn you over, much as I dislike to do it."
Here there came heavy footsteps upon the porch outside, followed by a
sharp pull at the door-bell, and Pollard, keeping one eye upon his two
bad men, edged to the door and opened it.
"Come in," he said politely, as he caught the glitter of a policeman's
buttons; "come in; but don't feel obliged to club me. In fact, you
needn't club anybody; the row's all over, and we're all friends here."
"I'd have been here sooner," said the panting patrolman, reaching into
his pocket for his handcuffs, "only when I heard the shooting I ran to
the box, and rang in the wagon-call. The team'll be along in a minute.
Well, you've done a good job here, sir, and I guess you didn't need
much help about it, judging by the looks of things."
"No, I suppose I didn't," admitted Pollard, shivering slightly as the
damp air of the early morning found its way through the thin, white
garment which modestly draped the upper portion of his person; "I
daresay I didn't; but ten minutes ago, all the same, I wouldn't have
refused a small amount of assistance Br-r-r! Chilly, isn't it? If
you'll stay here and entertain my guests for me, I'll run upstairs for
a minute and throw on some more cloth."
Stooping to pick up the burglar's revolver, which still lay where it
had fallen upon the stairs, he ran up to his room, struck a light, and
without bothering over the matter of hosiery, slipped on his shoes.
Then he struggled into his warm, military coat, lighted a cigar, and
descended to the hall, just in time to hear the rapid beat of hoofs
and the crunching sound of wheels that told of the patrol-wagon's
approach.
In a few minutes more all was over; Pollard had told his story to
the officers and the few excited neighbors who had ventured out to
investigate the cause of the tumult, and the wagon had rumbled away
with its two unwilling passengers and their guards.
"Well, that's over with and out of the way," said Pollard to himself,
after he had made secure the window through which, by forcing off the
catch, the burglars had gained entrance; "out of the way for the
present, at least: to-morrow, I suppose, I'll have to go through all
manner of fuss at the station--and later I'll be summoned to court to
help jug those poor devils for ten years or so apiece. Confound 'em!
why couldn't they have gone to some house where the people were away,
instead of stirring _me_ up?"
He yawned, and slowly made his way up to his Den, pausing for a minute
to inspect the perforated panels of the door. Of the three holes in
the woodwork, two were clean-cut and smooth, showing that the lead
had gone through from without; the third, ragged and surrounded by
splinters, told of the shot that he had fired.
"I'll have to get that door patched up before mother comes home," he
reflected, as he passed into the room, "or she'll have a most awful
attack of nerves when she sees it. Hello! it's well along towards
three o'clock, and--Great Jupiter's thunderbolts! I'd forgotten about
that match!"
He dropped into a chair, and stared blankly at the carpet. How on
earth could he manage to be in two places at once? He had promised to
report in the morning at the police-station, and yet he _must_ leave
town on an early train with his company team!
"Phew! I _am_ let in for it!" he thought. "Here's another 'emergency'
not provided against in Bones' lectures. I've ordered the team to
report to me at eight o'clock, and if I go over to see the police I
can't get to the armory in time. On the other hand, if I fail to show
up at the station I'll more than likely succeed in mixing myself up in
some unholy legal mess. Now, _how_ can I surround the situation?"
It certainly was a perplexing problem: but Pollard is not of those who
are prodigal of time in the making up of their minds, and his decision
was reached in short order.
"I don't know much about law," said he to himself, as for the second
time that night he pulled off his shoes; "but, for the present, the
police will have to go to Halifax! Perhaps I'm showing contempt of
court, or something else of the sort that will get me into calamity.
I can't help it if I am! I'm going out with the team, even if I land
in jail for doing it. Lord! I'm in fine, fat form for shooting!
To-morrow'll find me--_to-day'll_ find me, I mean--as nervous as a
Salem witch," and groaning dismally at his hard luck, he hunted up an
alarm-clock, set it for an early hour, and prepared to snatch what
little sleep he yet might be able to get.
With a vivid recollection of recent experiences he carefully assembled
his slippers at the foot of the bed, and then crawled between the
sheets. "I mustn't let the boys know anything about this," he
reflected, as he lay waiting for sleep to come to him; "it would break
'em up. Let me see, the morning papers go to press somewhere about two
o'clock, so the story can't leak out in that way. Well, it's tolerably
certain that _I'm_ out of the race. It would take a wooden man to
go through a night like this without getting the quivers. I'll be
satisfied if I can put my ten shots anywhere on the target."
Rolling over upon his side he closed his eyes, murmuring, "Glad I
winged that fellow, after all; he did his best to lay me out, and his
remarks were extremely ungentlemanly. Take it all together, it was a
pretty lively fray while it lasted. Can't say I'd care to go through
another like it--not just yet, anyway."
After an hour of turning and tossing, Pollard succeeded in dropping
into a troubled sort of doze; but, as it seemed to him, he hardly had
lost consciousness when the merciless little bell of the alarm-clock
began to rattle out its diabolical reveille, compelling him,
heavy-eyed and in a most villainous frame of mind, to struggle out
from beneath the tangled bedclothes. A plunge into a tub of cold water
did something towards freshening him up a bit, but when he buckled on
his ammunition-belt and picked up his rifle he swore softly to himself
at the day's prospect. However, a quick walk in the crisp air of the
September morning sent the blood jumping cheerfully through his veins;
and after he had made, at an in-town hotel, a halt long enough for
the total destruction of a thick and generous tenderloin of steak, he
strode over to the armory in a more confident mood.
And the match? Well, it was much like a hundred other matches
that have been shot over the same stretch of level, close-cropped
greensward: but "H" shot like sin, and it _was_ a cruelly close
thing--as Pollard had thought it would be--from the time when the
first bullet was sent singing on its way towards the distant targets,
until the last disk had been pushed up from the marking-pit.
According to his custom, Pollard coached his team until, except
himself, all had fired; then, with a coolness at which he found
himself wondering, he took his place at the firing-point and prepared
to shoot his own score. Shot by shot the sergeant at the blackboard
chalked up the results: three centres; a bullseye; another lone
centre; two more bullets in the black; a fifth centre; a fourth
bullseye--and one shot yet to be fired!
With his eyes upon the target, Pollard was slipping a cartridge into
the chamber when he felt a touch upon his sleeve, and turning, saw
Lieutenant Johnny, flushed with excitement, standing beside him.
"Polly," whispered the youth, with utter forgetfulness of rank and
title, "Polly, 'H' has finished! I'd never think of doing this with
anybody besides you--but, to win, you'll have to get a 'bull.' A
'four' isn't going to do the trick, for we'd be outranked on a tie.
_You've got to land in the black!_"
"Yes?" said the captain, dryly. "Well, Johnny, fall back--the gun
might explode, you know," and with a last glance at the drooping
wind-flags, he stiffened himself into position, gently lined the
sights upon the far-off speck of black, and fired.
For five breathless seconds, while the little puff of pungent smoke
lazily floated away, there was silence; and then, when the white
disk went slowly creeping up over the face of the target to find its
resting-place upon the bull's eye, there came from the watching men of
"M" a sharp gasp of relief, followed by an exultant yell of victory.
"_Steady!_" commanded Pollard, swinging around upon his heel.
"What's the matter with you, boys? Do you want to make people think
we've never won before?" and, bending over to pick up his lightened
cartridge belt, he walked towards the tents.
Late that afternoon, as the members of Pollard's team sat together
in the smoker, on their way back to town, a newsboy entered the car.
Pollard beckoned him to his side, bought an afternoon paper, and after
rapidly running his eye down the columns of the outer page, handed the
sheet to his lieutenant.
"Holy Smoke!" said that young man, catching a glimpse of the bold type
heading the story of his captain's night adventure, "Is _that_ the way
you slept last night? Well, I'll be--"
"You'll be asked to 'send in your papers,' Johnny," interrupted
Pollard, with an awful yawn, "if you ever again speak to me when I'm
at the firing-point in a match. You came pretty close to queering
my score for me, this afternoon. Yes, that's the way I slept last
night, and I think I'm beginning to feel it a trifle," whereat he
again yawned, and then settled himself more comfortably upon the dusty
cushions of the seat.
Well, that's all there is to the story. About the picture in Pollard's
smoking-room? Oh, the men of his team gave that to him, thinking that
he would like to have something by which to remember the cleverest
shot he ever fired. Over in the big armory, in the company-room of
"M," there hangs another picture, just like that one--the trophy
awarded by the Commonwealth to the team winning the championship of
the regiment.
* * * * *
Transcriber's Notes
Retained hyphenated and unhyphenated versions of "to-day" and
"to-morrow" used in the original book.
Page 44: changed "sittting" to "sitting." (Orig: He was sittting alone
upon the bench,)
Page 207: Changed "beween" to "between" and "must'nt" to "mustn't."
(Orig: then crawled beween the sheets. "I must'nt let the boys know)