The Greatest Adventure Books - MacLeod Raine Edition. William MacLeod Raine
Чтение книги онлайн.
Читать онлайн книгу The Greatest Adventure Books - MacLeod Raine Edition - William MacLeod Raine страница 168
Название: The Greatest Adventure Books - MacLeod Raine Edition
Автор: William MacLeod Raine
Издательство: Bookwire
Жанр: Языкознание
isbn: 4064066386016
isbn:
Fraser picked up the youngster. “Yes, Uncle Steve is back. But we’re going to play a game that Indians are after us. Webb must be good and keep very, very still. He mustn’t say a word till uncle tells him he may.”
The little fellow clapped his hands. “Goody, goody! Shall we begin now?”
“Right this minute, son. Better take your money with you, mother. Is father here?”
“No, he is at the ranch. He went down in the stage to-day.”
“All right, friends. We’ll take the back way. Tennessee, will you look out for Mr. Struve? Sis will want to carry the baby.”
They passed quietly down-stairs and out the back door. The starry night enveloped them coldly, and the moon looked down through rifted clouds. Nature was peaceful as her own silent hills, but the raucous jangle of cursing voices from a distance made discord of the harmony. They slipped along through the shadows, meeting none except occasional figures hurrying to the plaza. At the hotel door the two men separated from the rest of the party, and took with them their prisoner.
“I’m going to put him for safe-keeping down the shaft of a mine my father and I own,” explained Steve. “He wouldn’t be safe in the jail, because Dunke, for private reasons, has made up his mind to put out his lights.”
“Private reasons?” echoed the engineer.
“Mighty good ones, too. Ain’t that right?” demanded the ranger of Struve.
The convict cursed, though his teeth still chattered with fright from the narrow escape he had had, but through his prison jargon ran a hint of some power he had over the man Dunke. It was plain he thought the latter had incited the lynching in order to shut the convict’s mouth forever.
“Where is this shaft?” asked Neill.
“Up a gulch about half a mile from here.”
Fraser’s eyes fixed themselves on a young man who passed on the run. He suddenly put his fingers to his lips and gave a low whistle. The running man stopped instantly, his head alert to catch the direction from which the sound had come. Steve whistled again and the stranger turned toward them.
“It’s Brown, one of my rangers,” explained the lieutenant.
Brown, it appeared, had just reached town and stabled his horse when word came to him that there was trouble on the plaza. He had been making for it when his officer’s whistle stopped him.
“It’s all over except getting this man to safety. I’m going to put him down an abandoned shaft of the Jackrabbit. He’ll be safe there, and nobody will think to look for him in any such place,” said Fraser.
The man from the Panhandle drew his friend to one side. “Do you need me any longer? I left Miss Kinney right on the edge of that mob, and I expect I better look around and see where she is now.”
“All right. No, we don’t need you. Take care you don’t let any of these miners recognize you. They might make you trouble while they’re still hot. Well, so-long. See you to-morrow at the hotel.”
The Tennessean looked to his guns to make sure they hung loose in the scabbards, then stepped briskly back toward the plaza.
Chapter VIII.
Would You Worry About Me?
Margaret Kinney’s heart ceased beating in that breathless instant after the two dauntless friends had flung defiance to two hundred. There was a sudden tightening of her throat, a fixing of dilated eyes on what would have been a thrilling spectacle had it not meant so much more to her. For as she leaned forward in the saddle with parted lips she knew a passionate surge of fear for one of the apparently doomed men that went through her like swift poison, that left her dizzy with the shock of it.
The thought of action came to her too late. As Dunke stepped back to give the signal for attack she cried out his name, but her voice was drowned in the yell of rage that filled the street. She tried to spur her horse into the crowd, to force a way to the men standing with such splendid fearlessness above this thirsty pack of wolves. But the denseness of the throng held her fixed even while revolvers flashed.
And then the miracle happened. She saw the door open and limned in a penumbra of darkness the white comely face of a woman. She saw the beleaguered men sway back and the door close in the faces of the horde. She saw bullets go crashing into the door, heard screams of baffled fury, and presently the crash of axes into the panels of the barrier that held them back. It seemed to fade away before her gaze, and instead of it she saw a doorway full of furious crowding miners.
Then presently her heart stood still again. From her higher place in the saddle, well back in the outskirts of the throng, in the dim light she made out a figure crouching on the roof; then another, and another, and a fourth. She suffered an agony of fear in the few heart-beats before they began to slip away. Her eyes swept the faces near her. One and all they were turned upon the struggling mass of humanity at the entrance to the passage. When she dared look again to the roof the fugitives were gone. She thought she perceived them swarming up a ladder to the higher roof, but in the surrounding grayness she could not be sure of this.
The stamping of feet inside the house continued. Once there was the sound of an exploding revolver. After a long time a heavy figure struggled into view through the roof-trap. It was Dunke himself. He caught sight of the ladder, gave a shout of triumph, and was off in pursuit of his flying prey. As others appeared on the roof they, too, took up the chase, a long line of indistinct running figures.
There were other women on the street now, most of them Mexicans, so that Margaret attracted little attention. She moved up opposite the house that had become the scene of action, expecting every moment to hear the shots that would determine the fate of the victims.
But no shots came. Lights flashed from room to room, and presently one light began to fill a room so brilliantly that she knew a lamp must have been overturned and set the house on fire. Dunke burst from the front door, scarce a dozen paces from her. There was a kind of lurid fury in his eyes. He was as ravenously fierce as a wolf balked of its kill. She chose that moment to call him.
“Mr. Dunke!”
Her voice struck him into a sort of listening alertness, and again she pronounced his name.
“You, Miss Kinney—here?” he asked in amazement.
“Yes—Miss Kinney.”
“But—What are you doing here? I thought you were at Fort Lincoln.”
“I was, but I’m here now.”
“Why? This is no place for you to-night. Hell’s broke loose.”
“So it seems,” she answered, with shining eyes.
“There’s trouble afoot, Miss Margaret. No girl should be out, let alone an unprotected one.”
“I did not come here unprotected. There was a man with me. The one, Mr. Dunke, that you are now looking for to СКАЧАТЬ