Part 21 (2/2)

My att.i.tude was still indifference as to whether or not I were killed.

New developments had come fast since I turned from the door of the room where Weighborne's wife still sat before the fire with my stolen kisses fresh upon her lips and temples, but there had not been a moment of forgetfulness. I saw nothing ahead of me worth surrendering for, and now I felt that parlous as the situation was, it was Dawson rather than I who was frightened.

”Why don't you shoot?” I asked.

With a foul paroxysm of oaths and obscenity he threw the pistol aside, and crossing the room caught up the broken broomstick which served in lieu of a poker. I had never before been beaten. It was not pleasant, quite aside from the physical pain. And as to that phase of it, one who has not been bludgeoned with bracelets on his wrists may underestimate the actual bodily torture of the experience. At all events, I must confess that even now I sometimes awake from a nightmare in which I am being thrashed with a broomstick. I tried resistance, but one of them dragged at my chain while the other belabored me, until in a few moments I sank down in the wormwood bitterness of humiliation and defeat and was half-dragged, half-kicked up the stairs, and thrown into my room, where they gagged me against the possibility of outcry, and tied me so that I could not move from my mattress or kick upon the floor. Dawson himself remained with me. They had none too much time. Within a few minutes I heard the long-drawn halloo of persons without. The voices were friendly and the response from Bud was equally cordial. The all-pervading hypocrisy of these mountain hatreds lay over and whitewashed the att.i.tudes of both parties. As they came they shouted their request for permission to enter, and the man inside responded with a.s.surances of welcome. Those who were arriving were coming as spies. Those inside were bent on deceit.

We heard them calling, still from afar, that they wanted a drink of liquor, and we heard Bud shout back that his jug was at their command.

Then feet tramped about the lower floor. Curt Dawson stood back in the shadow of the eaves while this interview lasted with his weapon drawn, and never once until the visitors rode away from the house did his eyes leave the door at the head of the stairs.

When Bud came up after they had gone he was a little pale under the reaction and the strain of anxiety showed in his eyes.

”My G.o.d!” he exclaimed. ”I 'lowed them fellers never was ergoin' ter leave hyar.”

”What did you tell 'em?” demanded Dawson curtly.

”I told 'em I'd had a little business round hyar--let 'em think it was somethin' ter do with er still, an' said I'd jest spent the night hyar ruther then hoof hit back home.”

Dawson jerked his head toward the stairway. ”Did they say anythin' 'bout comin' up here?”

”No. They kinder eyed them steps, but they didn't say nothin'.”

For a moment Garvin's chief henchman walked the floor, then he snarled out, ”Did they ask anything erbout me?”

”Jim Calloway 'lowed that somebody'd done seed you in this country, an'

I said no, that you was over thar in Virginny.”

Again there was a moment's silence after which Dawson's orders came in quick staccato violence.

”Bud, you've got ter go ter town, so's they'll believe thet story. Don't come back hyar no more. Them fellers'll ride back before sundown. They suspicions somethin' an' they'll jest about slip back ter make sh.o.r.e.

I'll take this feller an' lay out in the timber tell night. Here, give me a lift.”

The two of them raised me, still gagged, and carried me down the stairs.

Keeping the house between themselves and the general direction of the road, they bore me by a path that ran along a cliff to a dense clump of timber. Then the lesser villain started on with his ambling step, pausing at the cabin to pick up the jug which was to corroborate his claim that his business had to do with illicit distilling. He also stopped indoors to obliterate all traces of human occupancy.

It was perhaps a mark of respect to my belligerency which led Dawson to leave me gagged, but it was a painful compliment. He propped me up so that I might have my back against a tree, and from our place of concealment we could look down unseen on the house. This time my captor did not favor me with conversation. He sat silent with his visage black and snarling, and his hand from time to time crept involuntarily toward his holster. As for myself, I was distinctly uncomfortable. The gag cramped my jaws and the rope about my ankles was unnecessarily tight.

But during the three hours that I had to sustain this position, events were transpiring which gave a certain interest to the situation. The men who had come earlier returned, as Dawson's suspicion had prophesied.

They shouted as before and when they received no answer they approached with a caution that carried me back to childhood stories of Indian attacks on block houses. Finally they entered the place, and Dawson sat there looking on, his hands wrapped about his knees and his shoulders shaking with silent laughter, as he surveyed their elaborate caution.

They remained in the house for more than an hour and then reconnoitered the premises, at one time pa.s.sing very near our place of hiding. Once more my custodian's lean hand caressed the grip of his pistol, and his thumb slipped down the safety catch. But in the end they rode away and I sorrowfully recognized their conviction that they had been running down a false clue.

It was cold and quite dark when Dawson removed the ropes from my feet and ordered me to walk back to the house.

That night I slept the sleep of exhaustion, and it was not until my breakfast arrived the next morning that I awoke.

My captor should have left me in my loft that day and should himself have remained below where he could watch for possible intrusion. But he was overcome with a desire to talk and this impulse led to a strategic error. He wanted to point out (now that he felt certain that I could not be present when Marcus called his witnesses) how near I had been all along to the town. He described to me in elaborate detail how, were I at that moment free, I could walk in twenty-five or thirty minutes to the court-house door and proceeded to give me satirical and exact directions. He felt that he had achieved a Machiavellian victory, and it pleased him to watch me squirm with a sense of frustrated possibilities.

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