Part 35 (1/2)

”Senorita,” said Quintana with another sweep of his hat, ”I ask pardon that I trouble you for my packet of which your father has rob me for ver' long time.”

Slowly the girl lifted her blue eyes to Stormont. He was standing between two masked men. Their pistols were pressed slightly against his stomach.

Stormont reddened painfully:

”It was not for myself that I let you open your door,” he said. ”They would not have ventured to lay hands on _me_.”

”Ah,” said Quintana with a terrifying smile, ”you would not have been the first gendarme who had--_accorded me his hand_!”

Two of the masked men laughed loudly.

Outside in the rag-weed patch, Smith rose, stole across the gra.s.s to the kitchen door and slipped inside.

”Now, senorita,” said Quintana gaily, ”my packet, if you please,--and we leave you to the caresses of your faithful gendarme,--who should thank G.o.d that he still possesses two good hands to fondle you! Alons! Come then! My packet!”

One of the masked men said: ”Take her downstairs and lock her up somewhere or she'll shoot us from her window.”

”Lead out that gendarme, too!” added Quintana, grasping Eve by the arm.

Down the stairs tramped the men, forcing their prisoners with them.

In the big kitchen the glare from the burning out-house fell dimly; the place was full of shadows.

”Now,” said Quintana, ”I take my property and my leave. Where is the packet hidden?”

She stood for a moment with drooping head, amid the sombre shadows, then, slowly, she drew the emblazoned morocco case from her breast pocket.

What followed occurred in the twinkling of an eye: for, as Quintana extended his arm to grasp the case, a hand s.n.a.t.c.hed it, a masked figure sprang through the doorway, and ran toward the barn.

Somebody recognised the hat and red bandanna:

”Salzar!” he yelled. ”Nick Salzar!”

”A traitor, by G.o.d!” shouted Quintana. Even before he had reached the door, his pistol flashed twice, deafening all in the semi-darkness, choking them with stifling fumes.

A masked man turned on Stormont, forcing him back into the pantry at pistol-point. Another man pushed Eve after him, slammed the pantry door and bolted it.

Through the iron bars of the pantry window, Stormont saw a man, wearing a red bandanna tied under his eyes, run up and untie his horse and fling himself astride under a shower of bullets.

As he wheeled the horse and swung him into the clearing toward the foot of Star Pond, his seat and horsemans.h.i.+p were not to be mistaken.

He was gone, now, the gallop stretching into a dead run; and Quintana's men still following, shooting, hallooing in the starlight like a pack of leaping shapes from h.e.l.l.

But Quintana had not followed far. When he had emptied his automatic he halted.

Something about the transaction suddenly checked his fury, stilled it, summoned his brain into action.

For a full minute he stood unstirring, every atom of intelligence in terrible concentration.

Presently he put his left hand into his pocket, fitted another clip to his pistol, turned on his heel and walked straight back to the house.