"Take that, you brute! and that!" and Stumps whirls his club and thunders against the ribs of the ruffian.
"You devil! you brat! what do you mean?"
Mad with disappointment and pain, he throws the girl from him, and turns upon the boy. He clutches him by the back of the neck as he starts to escape, and bears him to the ground.
"Look "ere, do you know what I"m going to do with you? I"m going to break your back across my knee! yes, I am!" and he glares about terribly.
Carrie shrinks back to the side of Forty-nine.
"Oh! Help! He will murder him! He will kill him!"
"No, I won"t murder you, you brat, but I"ll chuck you out in that snow and let you cool off, while I have your sister all to myself. Come here; give me your ear!" and the great, strong ruffian seizes his ear and fairly carries him along by it toward the door. "Give me your ear!"
"Oh, sister, sister! He will kill me!" howls Stumps.
"Forty-nine! save us! We will be murdered!"
"Come, I say, give me your ear!" thunders the brute, as he fairly draws the boy still toward the door.
"Stop that, or die!"
The frenzied girl, failing to arouse Forty-nine, has caught up the gun from the corner, and brought the muzzle to the ruffian"s breast. He totters back, and throws up his arms.
"Go back there and sit down, or I will kill you!"
"Give me your ear! Come!" roars Stumps. It is now his turn. "Give me your ear!" He reaches up and takes that red organ in his hand, and nearly wrenches it from the brute"s head, as he leads him back, with many twists and gyrations, slowly to a low seat at the other side of the cabin.
Still holding the gun in level, and in dangerous proximity to the man"s breast, Carrie cries:
"Now if you attempt to move you are a dead man!" "Give me your ear!" and Stumps wrenches it again, as he sits the man firmly on his low stool, with his red face making mad distortions from the pain. "John Logan, come!" calls the girl. "No, don"t you start, Gar Dosson. Don"t you lift a finger; if you do, you die!"
The curtains are parted, and John Logan starts forth. "Go, go! There"s not a moment to lose. The sheriff will be here; they are coming! Quick!
Go at once! I hear--I hear them coming!"
The man springs to the door; the latch is lifted; a moment more and he will be free--safe, at least for the night. Out into the friendly darkness, where man and beast, where pursuer and pursued, are equal, and equally helpless.
There is a crushing of snow, a stamping of feet, and one, two, three, four, five--five forms hurriedly pa.s.s the window. The latch is lifted, and as John Logan again darts back under cover, the party, brushing the snow from their coats and grizzled beards, hastily enter the cabin.
"Fly around, Carrie, fly around! fix yourself up!" The fresh gust of wind and storm from the door just opened, fans the glimmering spark of consciousness into sudden flame, and Forty-nine springs up, perfectly erect, perfectly dignified. "Fly around, Carrie, fly around; fix yourself up. The sheriff is coming--fly around!"
The girl drops the gun in the corner where she had found it, and stands before Forty-nine, smoothing down her ap.r.o.n, and letting her eyes fall on the floor timidly and in a childlike way, as if these little hands of hers had never known a harder task than their present employment of smoothing down her ap.r.o.n.
Dosson springs up before the sheriff. He rubs his eyes, and he looks about as if he had just been startled from some bad, ugly dream. He wonders, indeed, if he has seen John Logan at all. Again he rubs his eyes, and then, looking at his knuckle, says, in a deep, guttural fashion, to himself, "Jim-jams, by gol! I thought I"d seed John Logan!"
"Ah, Forty-nine," says the sheriff, "sorry to disturb you, and your Miss; and good evening to you, sir; and good evening to you;" and the honest sheriff bows to each, and brushes the snow from his fur cap as he speaks.
Gar Dosson advances to his partner, Phin Emens, who has just entered, with that stealthy old tiger-step so familiar to them both, and laying his hand on his shoulder, they move aside.
"Then it"s not the jim-jams," mutters he. "I"ve not got "em, then."
He stops, pinches himself, looks at his hands, and mutters to himself.
Then he lifts his hand to his ear.
"Look at it again!" Phin Emens looks at the ear. "It"s red, ain"t it?
Oh, it feels red; it feels like fire. Then I"ve not got "em, and he is here. Hist! Come here! We want that thousand dollars all to ourselves."
He plucks his companion further to one side. They talk and gesticulate together, while now and then a big red rough hand is thrust out savagely toward the curtain.
"Sorry indeed to disturb you, Miss," observes the sheriff; "but you see, I"ve been searching and swearing of "em all, and its only fair to serve all alike."
"He is not here. Upon the honor of a gentleman, he is not here," says Forty-nine, emphatically.
"He is here!" howls Dosson; and the tremendous man, with the tremendous voice and tremendous manner, bolts up before the sheriff. "He is here; and I, as an honest man am going to earn a thousand dollars, for the sake of justice. I have found him--found him all by myself; and these fellers can"t have no hand in my find." And he holds up John Logan"s cap, which had been knocked from his head in his hasty retreat to cover, and he rolls his red eyes toward the bed, takes a step in that direction, reaches a hand, lays hold of the curtain, and is about to dash it aside.
"John Logan is there!" shouts Dosson, and again the curtain is clutched.
Does he dream of what is beyond? If he could only see the panting, breathless wretch that leans there eagerly, with lifted gun, ready to brain him--waiting, waiting for him to come, even wishing that he only would come--he would start back with terror to the other side.
"He is here! I have found him! Come!"
Carrie, springing forward from her posture of anxiety and terror, grasps a powder horn from over the mantel piece, jerks out the stopple with her teeth, and holding it over the fire, cries, with desperation:
"Do it, if you dare! This horn is full of powder, and if any man here dares to move that curtain, I"ll blow you all into burning h.e.l.l!" The man loosens his hold on the curtain, and totters back. He is sober enough to know how terrible is the situation, and he knows her well enough to believe she will do precisely what she says she will do. "Yes, I will! We will all go to the next world together; and now let us see who is best ready to die!"
"Bravo!" shouts Forty-nine.
The sheriff and his men have been moving back slowly from the inspired girl, standing there by the door of death.
Gar Dosson at last steals around by the sheriff. "But he is here, Mr.
Sheriff," he says. "I tell you he is here in this house. There! For here is his cap. I found it. I found him, and I want him and I want that thousand dollars. Search!"
"And I tell you he is not here!" cries the girl, "and you shall not search, "less--"
And the horn is lifted menacingly over the fire. "Won"t you take my word?"
"You shall take _my_ word!" shouts Dosson.
"I will take your single word, Miss, against a thousand such men."
And the sheriff puts on his cap, turns, and is about to go.
"But he is here! The thousand dollars, Mr. Sheriff!" cries Dosson.
"Miss, officers sometimes have duties that are more unpleasant to them than to the parties most concerned. You say he is not here?"
"He is not here, Mr. Sheriff--he is not here!" cries Carrie.
The sheriff twists his cap on his head. "And you will be sworn, as the others were?" says the sheriff. "So much the better; and that will be quite satisfactory. Ah, here is the Bible at hand."