grew hysterically excited at the thought of the Strangers taking guns with
which to shoot back. Then a man rode up on a lathered horse, shouting
hoarsely that twenty Strangers had raided a country store some six miles
away. They had appeared suddenly. When they left they took half a dozen
shotguns--the whole stock--three rifles, and all the ammunition in the
store. They left gold to pay for the lot.
Cunningham heard all this as one would hear outside sounds during a
nightmare. He was like a madman. He would have gone rushing through the
place in search of Maria but that it was still broad daylight and there
were twenty or more armed men in the place, all mad with excitement and
fury. As it was, Cunningham was in a cold, clear-headed rage. He went to
his own room and packed his pockets with cartridges.
Vladimir was right in one respect. The natives were in no mood to listen
to the truth. They would believe nothing that he told them. He was
suspect, in any event. They classed him with the Strangers, and they
classed the Strangers with the beasts. Fighting such men was not fighting
law and order. The sheriff was bribed. The rest were wild with rage and
terror. They did not know they were catspaws for Vladimir. Even the
sheriff probably knew but little of Vladimir’s plans.
He went into Gray’s room and searched for a possible second revolver. As
he pawed grimly among Gray’s possessions he heard the sheriff speaking,
through a partition. Gray’s room was next to that occupied by Vladimir,
and Cunningham abruptly realized how Gray had obtained much information.
“I’m doin’ my best to hold ’em,” the sheriff was saying anxiously, “but
it’s gettin’ to be a tough job. I’d better send for militia----”
“Fool!” snarled Vladimir. “What do I give you money for? There will be no
fighting! We will march into the hills. We will pen up these
folk--surround them. If your mob kills a few, what harm? Afterward you
shall pick out your murderers--as many as you choose! They will confess to
anything you choose, after I have spoken to them. And then the rest of the
Strangers will move away. They will go away forever, with me! I will take
them!”
“But it looks bad----”
“They will lick my boots,” rasped Viadimir. “They will crawl upon their
knees and beg me for mercy. And I will give you four men to hang. They
will confess to their crime. And I will take the rest away.”
Cunningham nodded grimly. At least this clarified the situation a little.
Vladimir was afraid of the Strangers’ secret becoming known. He only
wanted to get them away. If he could find Maria and she would tell him,
and Gray brought the help he had promised----
Cunningham was not thinking for himself, except as his liberty meant
safety for Maria, and secondarily for the Strange People. But he would
have to go into every room in the hotel filled with armed and suspicious
men. It was lucky he had two guns. There would surely be shooting. There
would probably be a bullet or two for him.
“Now send your deputies to arrest Cunningham,” snapped Vladimir on the
other side of the wall. “Tell them to shoot him if he resists. He was
teaching the Strangers to shoot and advising them to resist arrest. That
is enough.”
“I’ll send a bunch,” whined the sheriff uneasily. “He’s a desp’rit
character. Talkin’ about accusin’ me of takin’ bribes....”
“You’ll be rich for life when this is over,” Vladimir purred. “Remember
that!”
* * * * *
The door closed behind the sheriff. Cunningham grinned savagely. He was to
have no chance at all. They had been sent to arrest him, after Vladimir
had given him news that would ensure his resisting. He would resist, right
enough! And then a wild and utterly reckless scheme sprang full-bodied
into Cunningham’s head.
He swung the door to--and heard a squeaking on the other side of the
partition as if a closet door had been opened. And then Vladimir spoke
purringly in that unknown language of the Strangers!
There could be but one person to whom he would be speaking at such a time
and in that language. Cunningham’s heart leaped violently. He heard voices
downstairs--men coming up to arrest him in his own room.
He darted out in the hall and plunged into Vladimir’s room, a ready
revolver upraised. Vladimir whirled and stared into its muzzle with ashen
cheeks. For once there was no purred jibe upon his lips, because
Cunningham’s face was the face of a killer after he had seen Maria in the
clothes-closet, bound hand and foot and with a gag in her mouth. She had
been staring at Vladimir in horror, but her eyes flamed at sight of
Cunningham.
For the fraction of a second they gazed at each other. Then her eyes
signaled frantic warning. Cunningham whirled and dashed his revolver
blindly in Vladimir’s face as his hand came up with an automatic. Vladimir
stumbled and crashed backward to the floor.
Footsteps crashed on the steps outside. Nearly all the men in the hotel,
it seemed, were coming up in a body to see to the arrest of Cunningham.
But he paid no attention. He was ripping away at the gag and tearing loose
the bonds that held Maria fast.
“Vladimir told me you’d been captured,” he panted, “and said you’d be
mobbed tonight. Now he’s sent a gang to arrest me, knowing I’d resist and
get myself killed. We’ve got to make a break for it. All right?”
Maria’s eyes were like stars. Cunningham kissed her suddenly.
“My God!” he laughed shakily. “One can think of love-making even at a time
like this! Listen!”
The crowd on the stairs had reached the top. They crowded down the hall
before Cunningham’s own door. There they hesitated, shuffling uneasily. At
last a voice called loudly, “Open in the name of the law!”
There was no answer from Cunningham’s empty room. They waited
breathlessly. A man pounded cautiously on the panel of the door.
“Open in th’ name of th’ law!”
Still silence.
“M-maybe he j-jumped outer th’ window,” suggested someone uneasily.
“R-rush him,” urged a man safely in the rear.
Cunningham and Maria, two rooms away, heard a hand laid on the other
room’s door. They heard it fling open with a crash and the scuttling of
feet as the mob of hastily deputized men jumped to one side to be out of
the way of possible bullets. Dead silence greeted them. And suddenly they
crowded into the deserted place.
“Now!” said Cunningham sharply.
He darted out, Maria running with him. She fled to the stairs and down
them, Cunningham two steps in the rear. A single straggler of the men who
were to have arrested him remained in the hall. He turned his head
stupidly at sound of their rush. His mouth dropped open, but before his
shout they were half-way to the ground floor.
Cunningham stopped at the foot of the stairs to fire three times up at the
ceiling of the second floor. A cloud of smoke filled the hall, and heads
that had craned over the balustrade withdrew, in a panic. A dozen paces
more and the fugitives were out in the roadway. Half a dozen horses were
tethered there and Cunningham tore loose the reins and leaped on one.
Maria sprang up lightly behind him and he kicked the animal madly with his
heels. It sprang into a panic-stricken gallop and was off down the road.
They were nearly out of sight before the first of their pursuers had run
out into the road behind them. Then half a dozen puffs of smoke showed
that they were fired on, but an instant later they were out of sight
around a bend in the road.
14
Cunningham laughed a little as the horse’s hoofs clattered beneath and the
white road shot past. Maria was clinging to his shoulders.
“Safe so far,” he told her, “but now we have to take to the woods. The
hand of every man is against us, Maria. Do you trust me to get you away?”
“Anywhere,” she said softly. “You know I do.”
A motorcar came racing toward them over the rough road. It was not fit
going for an automobile and the car swayed and lurched from side to side
with dangerous abandon. Cunningham swerved his horse out of the road. The
car slowed and stopped with a screaming of brakes. Cunningham’s hand fell
to his weapon.
Gray tumbled out of the cloud of dust that enveloped the machine.
“Cunningham,” he panted. “Just found--Vladimir had bribed the telegraph
operator. None of my wires got through. Found an amateur radio fan and he
sent my message. Relay League. Help’s coming. By airplane. Bendale is a
town of lunatics. Wild yarns have gone into it and a mob is coming out to
wipe out the Strangers. They think they’ve been burning children. You’ve
got to get up to the Strangers. Tell ’em about planes. Tell them to get
going and keep moving or there ’ll be a massacre. Help’s coming as fast as
it can get here. But for God’s sake keep them away from the mob. They’ll
be wiped out!”
“I’m going to get Maria away,” said Cunningham defiantly. “I’m going to
get her out of this state and marry her. The Strangers and anybody else
can go to the devil!”
Gray, choking upon the dust he had swallowed, gasped out a raging order.
“Don’t be a fool!” he cried. “Look at her clothes! She’s in the Strangers’
costume! You’ll be spotted if you’re seen, and three townships are raving
crazy! A dog couldn’t get away from here like that! You’ll be shot at by
every damned fool in three counties and arrested anywhere else you go! Get
up in the hills and keep the Strangers moving! The planes may not get here
until dark, and they can’t land in the hills in the darkness. I’m going to
meet them at Hatton Junction and guide them here. You get up in the hills
and keep the Strangers moving or there’ll be a massacre! That mob will
even wipe out the children! Everybody’s crazy! You’ve got to save them,
Cunningham! You’ve got to!”
And Cunningham knew that he was telling the truth. The Strange People
might not fight, if he begged them not to. To desert them would mean a
tragedy in the hills. The people about them were no more accountable than
so many lunatics. But to ride among the Strange People with Maria upon his
saddle! ... They would know that she loved him, and they would believe
that she had told him their secret. They would never let him leave the
hills again alive.
It was death either way, and probably for them both. He looked at Maria
and found her eyes misty with tears.
“Let me go,” she said suddenly, with a sob in her throat. “You go away. I
will go up to my people and tell them what this man has said. Without me,
you can escape. My people will tell me to die, but you will not know who
we are and you will never hate me or despise me....”
Cunningham caught her hand and laughed shortly.
“No, my dear,” he said grimly. “We won’t be separated. It’s a choice
between being shot like mad dogs or facing your people. We’ll ride up into
the hills. We’ll tell your people that help is coming to hold off the mob.
Their lives will be safe and their secret too, for all of me. And if we
die, it will be decently. I’ve two guns for the pair of us.”
He found himself laughing as he waved his hand at Gray and drove his horse
at the steep slopes that led upward to the tree-clad heights in which the
Strangers lurked.
As the trees closed over their heads he smiled again and swung Maria
before him. He gave the horse its head and the animal dropped to a
plodding walk. And they talked softly. They had but a little while to be
alone and they had never talked the tender foolishness that lovers know.
Now they were riding at a snail’s pace upward to the stern vengeance of
the Strangers upon a woman of their number who had loved outside the clan.
They spoke in whispers, not to avoid detection but because there are some
things that are too tender to be spoken aloud. And their eyes spoke other
things for which nobody has ever found words. Maria’s arm was about
Cunningham’s neck and her lips were never far from his own and it seemed
as if all trouble and care were very far away, though they were riding up
to death.
The trees rustled above them. Birds sang all about them. And they rode
through an age-old forest upon a weary horse, a scarecrow of a man with a
bandaged shoulder and a girl in barbaric finery, gazing at him with
tear-misted eyes. And as they rode they talked softly, and now and then
they smiled, and in every speech and glance and gesture there was an
aching happiness and a wistful regret.
All this was very foolish, but it was the proper and authentic conclusion
for a man who has followed the route to romance and adventure to its
appointed ending.
But there came a little rustling in the undergrowth beside them as they
went on climbing up to the heights. Then other rustlings. Far away there
was a whistle as if someone signaled. And very suddenly an arm reached out
from the thick brushwood and seized the horse’s bridle. One of the
Strangers stepped into view and gazed steadily up into the muzzle of
Cunningham’s revolver.
From all about them men materialized as if by magic. No man laid a hand on
any weapon. They looked at the pair upon the horse gravely, without rancor
but with infinite resolution.
And Stephan, Maria’s father, came into view and regarded them with weary,
hopeless eyes.
“Why did you come back?” he asked in a queer and resolute despair. “You
knew what we would have to do. Why did you come back?”
[Illustration: “He was hidden from view in a mass of stabbing figures.”]
15
The sun sank thunderously behind the mountain-range and tinted the tips of
all the peaks with gold. Little fleecy clouds floated overhead in
contented indolence. The wind of the heights was still. The pine-clad
hills seemed very soft and restful as the shadows deepened on the eastern
slopes, and contrasted strangely with the still-bright golden fields of
the valleys yet unshadowed by the mountains.
Stephan held out a weary hand, pointing. A sullen column of smoke rose
from a point far distant. He pointed again, where a thin wisp of vapor
grew steadily thicker and denser.
“Our houses,” he said bitterly. “They are being burned. Vladimir has
spoken, and we die.”
Cunningham clenched his fists as the sullen gray clouds rose slowly upward
in the still air. Once he saw figures moving about the base of the smoke.
Once he thought he heard yelling.
“I don’t think he’s told your secret,” he said after an instant. “That’s
the mob. Gray promised that help would come. He said it was coming by
airplane. And Vladimir----”
He told Stephan swiftly what Vladimir had said to the sheriff: that the
Strangers were to be surrounded by the mob, and that then he would speak
to them; that they would submit, and that some would go away in chains to
be hung for the murder of his brother, and that he would take the others
away with him forever; that they would follow when he spoke to them and
obey him in all things.
Stephan’s eyes flashed fire for a second.
“Is life so sweet or peace so dear,” he quoted bitterly, “as to be
purchased at the price of chains and slavery?” He stopped short. “No,” he
said quietly. “We will not obey him. No!”
Cunningham felt again that curious impotent bafflement. Stephan had just
quoted Patrick Henry’s speech to the House of Burgesses, the famous “Give
me liberty or give me death” speech. And Stephan had never seen a revolver
until Cunningham showed him one, nor a shotgun save at a distance and in
the hands of the farmers about him. None of the Strange People were better
informed. Keeping passionately to themselves, it was possible that they
would never have seen a pistol if they were ignorant of them before they
came mysteriously to these hills. Revolvers are not common in country
places, nor are those possessed displayed.
“You see,” said Stephan with a faint smile, “how I was able to spare you
for a time. It is likely that we will all soon be dead. And then it does
not matter if you know our secret or not.”
“Tell me now,” begged Cunningham. “It will make no difference to you, and
it may mean everything----”
Stephan smiled slowly at Maria, who was clinging to Cunningham’s arm as if
she feared that at any instant he might be torn away.
“You say you do not know,” he said with a wretched attempt at lightness.
“Maria loves you. You would despise her if you knew. Let her be happy as
long as may be.” He paused and surveyed the hillside with keen eyes, then
added: “We trust you. We might have killed many of that mob already. They
were careless. But we have fled before them. We will keep from killing
them as long as we can, because you have asked it.”
“Gray will be here!” said Cunningham passionately. “He has promised! Help
will come!”
Stephan shrugged his shoulders and gave a low-voiced order in the unknown
tongue which the Strangers spoke among themselves.
“Help,” he said in a moment more, and smiled very wearily indeed. “The
soldiers will come, no doubt. And then we die indeed. We move now, my
son.”
Half a dozen Strangers hovered near Cunningham. They were guards, to
prevent his escape at any cost. That they would kill him to keep him from
getting away there was no doubt. That they hated him was totally
improbable. The faces of all the Strangers wore a settled, fatalistic
look. Every one was now clad in the barbaric costume they had worn about
the fires the night before, as if they had abandoned all hope of
pretending longer that they were of the same sort as the inhabitants of
the valleys.
* * * * *
Cunningham followed as the Strangers moved on. Little bands of them were
constantly appearing unexpectedly from the woods and joining the main
body. There were quite two hundred in all when they passed over a
hill-crest and settled themselves in the valley beyond.
The mob had appeared from Bendale. On horse-back, in motor-cars and in
wagons drawn by teams, what seemed to be the whole population had come
raging out to Coulters. The farmers of the valley had put their women-folk
together and come armed with weapons, from shotguns to pitchforks. And
they had surged into the hills in quest of the Strange People. All had
forgotten that the only thing genuinely proved against the Strangers was
the death of Valdimir’s brother. All were hysterically convinced that the
Strangers made a practise of kidnaping children and sacrificing adults in
devilish orgies by their fires.
The belief was not unparalleled. To be peculiar is to invite suspicion.
The Strangers were peculiar. Suspicion is always based on fear. What fear
is more terrible than that of harm to one’s children? Every unknown man or
race of men has been accused of the one crime. Gipsies are not yet freed
of the suspicion of kidnaping. A lurking tramp or wanderer is instantly
and invariably suspected of intent to commit the same offense.
Was it odd, then, that the secretive folk of the hills had been classed as
doubtful? The mysterious ceremony of the fires, as described by the
ignorant and frightened constables, was capable of any interpretation.
What had been doubts and vague surmises became certainties when coupled
with the ceremony which was meaningless unless sinister.
Now the Strangers had withdrawn from the first of the mountain-slopes.
They abandoned their homes to the mob without a struggle. The houses went
up in flames. The Strangers had seen the columns of smoke rising to the
sky.
Men and women wore a look of settled calm. A mob that vastly outnumbered
them, and was vastly better armed, was seeking them in raging madness.
They waited to die. Some of the younger men chafed at the delay in
fighting. With their throwing-knives they might have picked off many of
their persecutors, but Stephan had forbidden it.
They waited. Darkness fell. Through the stillness of early night came the
sound of a shot, then another and another. Wild yells broke loose below.
After a long time a runner came panting to the bivouac. He had bound the
embroidered sash that was part of his costume about his arm, but it was
stained--a dark purple in the moonlight.
Stephan ordered another move. Uncomplainingly the Strangers rose and
plodded farther into the hills. The children were weary. Fretful little
cries rose from the long line. Women hushed them gently. There was little
talk. Just a long line of barbarously clad people plodding with bowed
heads onward, onward, onward, while a shouting, raving mob raged through
the woods in quest of them.
Cunningham went with them. He had no choice, but it is doubtful if he
would have done otherwise had he been able to.
Again the weary people settled for a little rest. Yells sounded faintly,
far to the right. A red glow began and grew larger and became a house
burning with a crackling noise in the wilderness. Cunningham saw an old
man rise on one elbow and peer at the flames. His face was apathetic. Then
he lay down again.
“That was my house,” he said quietly to the man nearest him, and was
silent.
Again came runners, panting. One man was sobbing in rage and humiliation,
begging leave to plunge into the mob and die fighting--alone, if need be.
Stephan refused him gently.
“I think we die,” he said grimly, “but he”--Stephan pointed at
Cunningham--“has promised that help will come. I do not believe it, but we
can miss no chance. We have women with us, and children. We must hold
ourselves for them. While the least chance remains, we must live.”
Once more came the order to move. And once more the weary march began. It
had no object and it had no hope. But beneath the full moon the Strangers
plodded on and on, until the baying of dogs set up behind them.
“They’ve sent down in the valley and got dogs!” raged Cunningham in a
blend of fury and sick horror.
Stephan stroked his chin and gazed at Cunningham.
“What now, my son?” he asked.
Cunningham shook his head in despair.
“This is the end,” said Stephan quietly. “I think--I think we may let you
go on alone, if you wish. You may escape.”
“Maria?” demanded Cunningham, very white. He would feel like a coward and
a scoundrel if he deserted these people, but if he could save Maria he
would do it.
“No,” said Stephan. “She is my daughter and I would save her life. But if
our secret is known it is best that she die quickly with the rest.”
Cunningham groaned and clenched his fists.
“I stay,” he said harshly. “And--I fight with you!”
Sunrise broke upon the Strangers huddled high up on a bare and windswept
peak. Its first cold rays aroused them. Gradually it warmed them. And it
showed them clearly to a ring of still-raging men who were made savage by
the ruin they had wrought during the night. From fifty places in the hills
thin columns of smoke still rose wanly to the sky, from as many heaps of
ashes that had been the Strangers’ homes.
And shots began to be fired from the besiegers of the Strange People. Then
Vladimir rode forward on a white horse and shouted to them in that unknown
language.
16
Cunningham could not understand the speech of Vladimir, nor the replies
that Stephan made. Only, once Maria clung to his arm in an access of hope.
“He has not spoken!” she whispered. “He is threatening now to tell them
who we are----”
Then Vladimir was shouting promises, to judge by his tone. A moment later
his voice was stern.
Maria sobbed suddenly. A growl went up from the Strangers, running all
about among the huddled figures.
Far away over the hills a low-toned buzzing set up. It strengthened and
grew louder. A black dot hung between earth and sky. It grew larger. A
second black dot appeared; a third. Wings could be seen upon the first of
the airplanes. More and more appeared until there were six in all, flying
in formation and winging their way steadily toward the hills.
They darted back and forth, searching. Cunningham shouted joyously.
“There they are!” he yelled. “Tell Vladimir to go to hell, Stephan! We’ve
got help with us now!”
Vladimir had heard the sound of the engines and stared upward. Then foam
appeared upon his lips and he shrieked with rage.
“There will be soldiers upon those things?” asked Stephan quietly. The
Strangers were gazing up at the swooping aircraft that quartered the hills
like monster hawks, in quest of the Strangers and their enemies.
“Surely,” Cunningham told him joyously. “They’ll carry five men apiece,
with the pilots.”
Stephan rose and stepped forward, where he shouted in a stentorian voice
to Vladimir. Maria gasped in terror and clung close to Cunningham.
“He is--he is going to do as Vladimir says!” she cried. “Do not let him do
it! Oh, do not----”
Stephan turned and spoke in a low tone in the unknown tongue of the
Strangers. And where there had been rebellion among the defiant folk on
the peak before he spoke, afterward there were grim smiles. Men’s hands
loosened the knives in their belts.