"Dead men tell no tales," he muttered, "and he would be past all recognition by the time any one came across him in this isolated spot.
Then, again, some one might happen to wander this way.
"It"s best to be sure; to put it beyond human power to discover his ident.i.ty, and the only way to secure that end is to burn this place. Ay!
that is the surest and safest way to effectually conceal the crime."
He had muttered the words aloud, and they fell distinctly upon the ears of Lester Armstrong, who had awakened at the sound of his footsteps the second time, although he had given no sign of having done so. The words fell with horrible dread upon his ears because of the fact that he was bound hand and foot by an iron chain, fastened to a heavy ring in the floor.
For the last week he had used every endeavor to force the links apart, but they had frustrated his most strenuous efforts.
And he said to himself, if the fiend incarnate before him carried out his intention of firing the place it would be all over with him. The horrible smoke would a.s.suredly suffocate him ere he could, even by exerting the most Herculean strength, succeed in liberating himself.
With bated breath he heard Halloran enter the outer apartment.
And he heard his impatient, muttered imprecations as he fumbled about for matches, seemingly without finding any.
"This is where I put them," exclaimed Halloran, with an oath, "but they are not here now."
After a moment"s pause his voice broke the awful stillness, exclaiming:
"Ah! here they are! I imagined they were not far away. One should always know where to put his hands on such things, even in the dark. A whole bunch of "em; I did not remember that I had so many!"
For the next few moments Lester heard him walking to and fro, apparently dragging heavy articles over the floor, and he knew that he was piling pieces of boards together in the middle of the room to start the blaze.
His blood fairly ran cold in his veins at the thought.
The moments that followed seemed the length of eternity.
Each instant he expected to hear the dull scratching of the matches, quickly followed by the swift, crackling blaze.
With all his strength he strove to rend asunder the heavy steel chain, but it resisted his every effort.
"G.o.d in heaven! am I to die here like a rat in a trap?" he groaned, the veins standing out like knotted whipcord on his forehead, the perspiration pouring down his face like rain.
For some moments there was a strange, unaccountable silence in the outer room.
Lester paused in his efforts to wrench the iron bands asunder which bound his wrists, wondering what that ominous silence meant.
The suspense was terrible, yet each moment meant that much of a respite from the horrible fate which awaited him.
What could Halloran be doing? Surely he had not abandoned his intentions to set fire to the cabin?
It was almost too good to be true. And yet that awful uncertainty was almost unbearable.
In the outer room Halloran sat quietly thinking over his plans, match in hand, telling himself that he had better perfect them then than wait until he was journeying toward the railway station.
He would take the first train bound for New York, seek Kendale at once, and have an understanding with him before he would disclose to him the fact that Lester Armstrong was effectually out of his way.
"Yes, that is the only course to pursue," muttered Halloran, and springing to his feet, he struck half of the matches in his package at once, and lighted the pile heaped in the center of the cabin floor.
CHAPTER XXVII.
HALLORAN MEETS WITH HIS REWARD.
In an instant after the match had been applied a fiery tongue of flame leaped to the ceiling, lighting the interior of the cabin with a blinding glare of red light.
Seizing his hat, Halloran dashed from the place and down the road, never pausing until he had reached the fork of the roads. Then he stopped for breath and looked back over his shoulder.
A high ridge of ground intervened, completely hiding the doomed place from his view.
He did not even behold the column of fire and smoke, as he had antic.i.p.ated.
"Those old boards are so damp that it will probably take some time to ignite them, and there"s no use waiting to see that," he muttered. "I will be well on my way to the railway station by that time."
He redoubled his speed to get as far away from the scene as possible, for, villain though he was, this was his first actual crime, and his conscience troubled him a little.
Another mile or more he traversed through the heavy snow; then he suddenly became conscious that there were rapidly approaching footsteps behind him.
Great heavens! had Lester Armstrong succeeded in making his escape? No, it could not be. Even if so, he was too weak to run in that rapid fashion. Involuntarily he paused and glanced backward over his shoulder.
The next instant a wild, panting cry of mortal terror broke from his lips.
In that backward glance he had beheld a huge black bear, making rapidly toward the spot where he stood, fairly paralyzed with horror.
It dawned upon him suddenly that only a few days before he had read of the escape of one of the most ferocious black bears of the zoological gardens, and, though two days had elapsed and men were scouring all parts of the adjacent places, no trace of the animal had been found, and great fears were expressed of the grave damage the bear might do before he was recaptured.
This was undoubtedly the animal that had escaped which was making toward him with great leaps and savage growls, as though it had already marked him for its prey.
His teeth chattered like castanets; his eyes fairly bulged from their sockets; the breath came in hot gasps from his white lips; his brain reeled, as he took in, in that rapid glance of horror, his awful doom.
Nearer and nearer sounded the hoa.r.s.e, awful growls; nearer and nearer moved the huge black ma.s.s over the white, crunching snow.
The moon was slowly rising over the horizon, rendering all objects clearly distinct to his frightened gaze.
He was pa.s.sing through a narrow belt of woodland, and like an inspiration it occurred to him that his only hope of escape lay in climbing one of the trees and thus outwitting the bear.
He saw with sinking heart that they were scarcely more than saplings, and whether or not they would bear his weight without snapping in twain he dared not even pause to consider.
With a groan of mortal terror he sprang for the nearest tree. Fright seemed to lend him wonderful strength and agility; he succeeded in reaching the lowest limb as the animal, with glittering eyes and widely distended jaws, reached the tree.
Up, up, crept Halloran, his teeth chattering, his strength almost leaving him as the animal"s roar of baffled rage fell upon his ear.
To and fro bent the sapling under his weight, threatening to snap asunder each moment and cast him into the jaws of the enraged beast.
The hours that followed were of such keen, mortal terror that he vaguely wondered that he did not lose his reason through fright.