Part 15 (1/2)

He crossed his legs and slouched more indolently into his chair in the att.i.tude of a bored and vacant-minded man--but as he sat his brain was focussed on the clicking.

”Am tied . . . up . . . here,” spelled out the dots and dashes from the baggage-room. ”If you understand, sc.r.a.pe chair on floor.” Brent s.h.i.+fted his seat noisily.

”She . . . is . . . caught. . . .” There was a pause there.

”In G.o.d's name, how is he doing it?” Brent questioned himself, while inside, bound to his chair, with cuffed wrists, Halloway went on sending--rapping with a pipe stem between parted rows of strong teeth.

”She is held . . . in mine-shaft . . . back of Gap. . . .”

The pressure of concentrating on that faint, but infinitely important sound, and the need of maintaining a semblance of weary dullness was trying Brent's soul. He thanked Heaven for the taciturnity of his companions.

”Get there . . . with all men possible . . . as for me----”

Brent came suddenly and noisily to his feet for just then the operator appeared in the doorway and it would not do for these sounds to continue after his coming.

”Well, here comes the man I've been waiting for,” he announced loudly, and once more the clatter in the baggage-room became the random of rats at play. ”I wanted to ask you if you had any message for William Brent, from a man named Halloway,” he inquired, still speaking as if against the wind, and, receiving a brief negative, he turned toward the outer door.

An exit under such circ.u.mstances is always difficult. To curb the urge of haste, to remain casual under lynx-like eyes, these are not untrying tasks. Any slip now and he might be in the same durance as Halloway himself--and when he breathed the outer air it was with a deep-drawn sigh of relief for delivery out of peril.

When he had established connection with O'Keefe and had given him the main facts, withholding, however, his sources of information, he said: ”We must get Halloway free before we start.”

”Like h.e.l.l we must!” exploded Jerry. ”So long es he lays thar they'll figger they've done fooled us an' beat us. Ef we take him out, thar'll be men in ther la'rel all the way we've got ter go, pickin' us off in ther dark.”

”You're right,” a.s.sented Brent, ”but he's been there all day, I guess.”

”Wa'al then a leetle more hain't goin' ter hurt him none.”

Fifteen minutes later, leaving separately but timed to come to a rendezvous near the point of attack a good dozen men were on the trail to the Gap.

Through wet and chilly thickets O'Keefe led Brent at a gait that made his heart pound. There was a battle-joy in the mountaineer's eyes and in them too, was something else inspired by certain dreams of the girl he had seen only once and whom he had told himself he meant to marry.

Over broken gulches, along precipitous paths he led the way buoyantly and now and then he broke into low almost inaudible crooning of an ancient love song.

Vainly the crew of highwaymen in the mine awaited the arrival of the seeming rescuer who was to take their captive off their hands and relieve them of the necessity of murder. It had been understood that Jase was to employ only a few attackers in the accomplishment of this knightly deed. Few men could be spared from other duties, and the smaller the force which he led to victory the more l.u.s.trous would be his glory of achievement. There was to be a great deal of shooting and shouting through the narrow entrance to the place--and the exaggerating echoes of the rocky confines would multiply it into a convincing din of battle.

The alleged Ku-Klux clansmen would fight their way out, leaving their prisoner behind--and in the confusion--but not until then--the saddle-bags would disappear.

It was all very simple, and prettily adjusted, but the difficulty was that Jase had failed to arrive and the act was lagging without its climax.

He failed because of unforeseen events. Pending the cue for his entrance he and his fellow heroes were being employed as sentries guarding the approaches to the place against invasion by outsiders.

Jase himself had for several hours been lying as flat as a lizard under a matted clump of laurel on the edge of a cliff, overlooking a ford which could not be rapidly crossed. His function was to see to it that no one pa.s.sed there whose coming might prove an embarra.s.sment.

The rawness of the air caused his bones to ache and his muscles to cramp, but he had been steadfast. He was playing for high stakes.

Finally two hors.e.m.e.n had appeared--and they were two who must not pa.s.s.

One of them was Brent and the other was Bud Sellers.

So Jase had opened fire and Bud had returned it--returned it and fled.