Chapter 18

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_ CHAPTER XVIII

Jerry bade Alexander farewell after depositing her parcel by the threadbare seat of the battered day coach which was to carry her to Perry Center, but as he said good-by, he was, for once, acting without candor. He meant to go to Perry Center too, but being called by no business, except to follow her, he thought it wiser to make no announcement of his intention. When the engine wheezed and groaned to its start. Jerry swung himself into the baggage compartment, and after the elapse of a safe interval presented himself, grinning, in the day coach.

The girl pretended indignation, but her wrath was neither convincing nor terrifying. After a space she inquired, "Jerry, does ye know whar Jack Halloway come from afore he struck this section?"

O'Keefe shook his head. "I don't jedgmatically know what creek he was borned on, ef thet's what ye means, but I reckon hit warn't so fur away."

Her eyes narrowed a trifle. "Does ye even know--fer sure--thet he's a mountain man?"

Jerry laughed. "I hain't nuver heered tell of no man thet war raised up in the settlemints claimin' ter be a benighted boomer," he answered. "Hit's right apt ter be ther other way 'round." He paused, then judicially added: "When a man's co'tin a gal, he gin'rally seeks ter put hisself in ther best light he kin--not ther wust."

"Yes, thet sounds right reasonable," she admitted.

"What made ye ask, Alexander?"

After a dubious pause, she spoke hesitantly, "I jest fell ter studyin' erbout hit. Ef I tells ye, ye mustn't never name ther matter--ter nobody."

"I gives ye my hand on thet."

"Wa'al, Mr. Brent told me afore he left, thet ef I ever needed counsel I should write ter him. When Jack went away, I writ--an' yestiddy I got an answer back. My letter ter Mr. Brent asked ther same question thet I jest put up ter _you_."

"What did Brent say?"

She was looking out of the car window with eyes that were serious and preoccupied.

"He said he knowed all erbout him--but thet a question like thet ought rightfully ter be put ter a man fust-handed. He bade me ask Jack myself when he come back--but he pledged hisself ter answer all my questions ef Jack should happen ter refuse, atter he'd hed one chanst."

The gray-blue eyes narrowed for a moment, then O'Keefe inquired, "Does hit makes any great differ whar a man was borned at?"

"Mebby not. I just fell ter wonderin'."

"Does ye want my fam'ly Bible ter look me up in?" demanded Jerry and the girl laughed.

But she did not tell Jerry what lay back of this whole discussion. She did not confide to him the mystery of a coat with a patched lining.

It had been a very old coat, though at one time, long ago, a good one, and already it had been patched and repatched. When Alexander had picked it up that night before Halloway's departure, as she struggled to keep her feet against the elemental surge of his whirlpool passion, its inner breast pocket had spread a bit at the top, and her eyes had glimpsed a discolored tailor's label--bearing the words, "New York."

That had been the thing she needed: the floating spar to one who is drowning and it steadied her into instant resistance. She had gone to her own room and read there the full legend--almost obliterated by wear--almost, but not quite. Some letters and numbers were gone, but enough were left legible.

"Mr. J. C. Halloway," was written in ink with a number on Fifth Avenue, New York. Then there was the tailor's name and address--also on that main thoroughfare of Fashion.

Cumberland mountain loggers do not have their clothes hand tailored in Manhattan; and though the exact locality meant nothing to her, the town meant much.

The label was partly ripped away from the pocket, and the girl had snipped it loose altogether. Halloway had played a careful game. He had avoided carrying forwarded envelopes--he had held to the vernacular at times when sudden crisis threatened to drive him into forgetfulness. He had overlooked only one possible precaution--that of ripping out the tailor's trademark from his coat.

"Yes, we're right proud of thet thar wheat elevator. We all went partners ter raise ther money fer rearin' hit," said Warwick McGivins, as he dismounted from his old pacing mare and pointed to a huge wooden building that stood at the edge of a bluff, from which one could drop a rock down a sheer hundred and fifty feet.

Alexander, his niece, and Jerry O'Keefe, following suit, slid from their saddles and the three walked through a wide gate, over a set of wagon scales and into the yard of the huge structure.

"Kinderly looks ter me like ye'd done deesigned hit fer a fort ter fight In'jins," suggested O'Keefe and the guide nodded his iron gray head. "Hit don't hurt none ter hev a house like thet solid-timbered," he asserted. "When ther crop's in, thet buildin' holds erbout all ther wheat thet ther passel of us fellers raises amongst us--an' we seeks ter hev hit held safe. Thar's some car-loads in thar right now, an' threshin' time hain't nigh over yit."

Drawing a key from his pocket he took them into the small office, and showed them the spaciously dimensioned interior. There were no windows save high overhead, and only two doors. One of these was a great sliding affair where the wagons backed up, and the other was small but equally solid. It was a huge box of heavy timber, most of it constituting the bin itself, but the old fellow showed it proudly--nor was his pride misplaced, for with this great cube of massive timber, his neighbors had met and overcome a perplexing handicap of nature.

They climbed a ladder and looked down into the reservoir partly filled with golden grain, and Jerry, noticing a coil of rope hanging from an upright, inquired: "Did ye hev a lynchin' in hyar by way of house-warmin'?"

McGivins laughed, but his narrative had not yet come to uses of that rope, and he refused to be hurried.

"Ye sees," he zestfully enlightened, "we've got a sort of table land of wheat ground hyarabouts thet raises master crops--an' we've got a railroad runnin' right past our doors ter haul hit out ter ther world below."

"No wonder folks hyarabouts hes got prosperity," mused Alexander a little enviously, thinking of her rocky hillsides on Shoulder-blade.

"Yes, but ther road didn't do us no great lavish of good--'twell we deevised this hyar thing," her uncle reminded her. "Hit jest kinderly aggravated us. Ye see our fields lays on high ground an' ther railroad runs through a deep chasm. We kain't git down ter hit, nigh es hit be, withouten we teams over slavish ways fer siv'ral steep miles. Now I'll tek ye down ther clift an' show ye what's down thar--an' how we licked thet mountain."

He led them out and down a narrow path, where they had to hold to branch and root until they reached the bottom of a deep ravine--and there one hundred and fifty feet lower was another huge bin, open at its top, and connected with the upper structure by an almost vertical chute.

So after all it was a piece of highly creditable engineering. It enabled the grower to weigh and store his product above, and then by opening the runway to deposit it at the rails. In only one respect would an engineer have quarreled with the arrangement. The long lever that loosened and held the flowing tide of grain operated from outside the upper building instead of from within.

"What's ter hinder a thief from comin' in ther night-time," demanded Jerry practically, "an' runnin' hisself out a wagon-load of thet thar stuff an' haulin' hit off?"

The elder's face fell a little.

"Thet's a far question," he acknowledged, "but we couldn't skeercely tutor hit no otherwise--an' we keeps thet lever fastened with a chain an' padlock."

"But how erbout ther rope," persisted O'Keefe, and the older man explained. "Sometimes we has ter nail up loose planks inside thet runway, an' when we does a feller lets hisself down on thet rope."

In a week, the midsummer term of the High-court would convene and the case of the man who had wounded his neighbor would be called for trial.

The activities of possible informers became again a pregnant danger to the erstwhile Ku-Klux operators and again a squad of men with rifles set out to cope with the situation.

Halloway had slipped away for the time being, but the movements of Jerry and Alexander had been duly watched and reported. It did not altogether please the men charged with this new duty to operate about Perry Center. They would have preferred the wilder territory adjacent either to Shoulder-blade creek or to Coal City, but the thing must be accomplished and all matters are relative. If Perry Center lay in a smoother country it was still mountain country and wild enough if one were careful.

On an evening gorgeously alight with a full moon, Jerry came to the McGivins' house as was his custom. These were times when he did not have to consider sharing the right of way with a rival, and he was availing himself of his undisputed respite.

Shadows of deep purple-blue lay everywhere like velvet islands in the silver flood of the moon's radiance. Through the timbered slopes came the soft cadences of the night's minstrels--the voices of frogs and katydids and the plaintive call of the whippoorwills.

Alexander had been deeply reflective as she sat with her lovely chin resting on one hand, listening to the low-pitched voice in which her lover was pleading his cause.

"I kain't be sure--not yit," was her uncertain response to all his argument.

They saw a shadow fall across the lighted doorway at their backs, and heard the somewhat disturbed voice of Warwick McGivins.

"I've got ter go over thar ter ther wheat elevator, I reckon. I kain't find ther key nowhars an' I mistrusts I left hit in ther door when I war weighin' up wheat this evening; I'll jest leave ther two of ye hyar fer a spell."

Jerry rose obligingly to his feet. "I reckon my legs is a few y'ars younger than yourn," he announced cheerfully. "I'll jest teck my foot in my hand and light out fer over thar. Hit hain't but a whoop an' a holler distant nohow."

"Hit's a right purty night," volunteered Alexander, in a voice of vague restlessness. "I don't kinderly feel like settin' still. I'll go along with ye, Jerry."

The young man's eyes brightened delightedly. It had been a strain on his innate courtesy to surrender so much of his moonlight evening with Alexander, and now he had his reward. There had been an unrest in her eyes to-night--yet somehow he had felt her nearer to him in thought, and his bruised feelings were stirring into fresh hope.

Together they started out, and under the spell of the night's graciousness one of those silences that seem a bond of sympathy fell between them.

The way led for a while along the high road, then turned off into the woods, where the rhododendron was massed thick. Here there was more of the velvet shadow and less of the direct moonlight, but through the open spaces that, too, fell in filtering patterns of platinum brightness.

Once Jerry halted abruptly and stood listening, then he went on again.

"I heered hit too," said Alexander understandingly, for in the hills one pauses to question unexplained sounds in the night time. "I reckon hit war some varmint stirring."

The route they had taken led along the margin of the bluff, and when they were close to the elevator, walking single file, with Alexander in the lead, the serenity broke with the malignant sharpness of a barking rifle.

Jerry heard the whining flight of the bullet that had missed his head by inches, and as though in obedience to a single nerve impulse, both the girl and the man fell flat to the better concealment of the ground, and edged back into the sootily shadowed laurel.

"We've got need ter separate," whispered Jerry, with his lips brushing her ear. "I aims ter git inside ther elevator--and hold 'em off. You hasten down over ther cliff an' work back ter ther house. I reckon hit's me they wants, but I'll endure 'twell ye brings help."

Without wasting a needless word or breath in argument, Alexander began noiselessly twisting her way towards the brow of the precipice. Jerry's heart was pounding with terror lest she be discovered--and to divert from her an attention that might prove fatal, he recklessly rose and leaped across a spot of moonlight, making a fleeting target, which brought from two separate sources responses of riflery.

The man knew now that whoever his assailants might be they were out in force and in earnest. Cautiously he worked his way along the shadows, his luck still holding until finally he had reached his point of vantage within a few yards of the open gate that led to the elevator itself. To gain that haven he must dash for it across a band of unmasked moonlight. Once inside, he had only to wait for the relief of reinforcements.

To the right and left of him, and from several spots at once, O'Keefe heard stirrings in the thicket. There must be a sizable pack out on the hunt and he surmised that they were making those unnecessary noises with the purpose of drawing his fire and bringing him into revealment by the spurt of his pistol.

The door of the elevator itself stood partly in the moonlight. Jerry O'Keefe could see the dull glitter that he knew to be the key--and could even make out--or so he thought--that the door stood an inch or two ajar.

Of that he was not quite certain--and it was a vitally important point.

If the lock was not caught, he might get in before he could be killed. If he had to fumble with a key, his end was certain.

Jerry drew himself together and made the dive. Four rifles spoke in unison and four bullets imbedded themselves in the heavy timbers of the great building as he hurled himself against the door, and felt it give laxly under his weight.

He had not fired a shot and between himself and his enemies stood the staunchness of walls against which their rifle bullets would pelt as harmlessly as hailstones. Except for his anxiety about Alexander he might have lighted his pipe and waited with a contented spirit.

Indeed, a slow smile did shape itself on his face, but a startled thought wiped it away as swiftly and completely as a wet sponge obliterates writing on a slate. That thought left his expression as black as a slate too.

Jerry drew his pistol, and for a moment it was in his mind to open the door and go out again.

When he had sent the girl away for reinforcements it had not occurred to him that this ambuscade might be intended to include her as well as himself. He had thought that, once apart from him, unless mistaken for him in the dark, she could walk safely. Indeed he had been at a total loss to explain, in any way, the motive of the attack.

Now it had flashed upon him that it was somehow an outgrowth of the old robbery attempt--and if that were true as high a price lay on the girl's head as upon his own. She was out there alone and in all likelihood unarmed.

Jerry O'Keefe broke into a cold sweat of panic--and he sat with his ears strained for a pistol shot--a shout--any indication that might call him across the moonlight zone beyond the door to her defense.

But the stillness of the midsummer night had settled again, except for the voices of the whippoorwill and the katydid.

By this time, he tried to reassure himself, Alexander had made her way down into the gorge and was beyond the touch of danger.

But that was not true. The girl had need to move with such silence as should break no twig and rustle no shrub. She must twist along a course that avoided the patches of moonlight, weaving her slow way in and out. Deliberation now was hard, but it would mean greater and more effective haste later on. She had even paused, crouching, with inheld breath, at a spot from which she could watch the door of the elevator, until Jerry had made his dash. With a heart swollen and strained by dread almost to bursting, she had seen him shoot across the exposed area and burst through the door--and she had heard the fusilade that resented his escape.

Or was it escape? He had plunged through the dark opening much as a falling man might go. But now safe, wounded or dead, he was inside and they could not reach him, so it behooved her to use wary care to the end that she might bring him help.

But as Alexander came to the two large boulders between which she meant to start down into the gorge she was arrested by a flicker of light there. The rock shielded from view the man who seemed to be kindling a pine torch, but the flare had warned her in time to make her crouch low and consider her course. That path which she had chosen was cut off.

Then, low and guarded voices stole across to her with the light.

"War's ther gal? She didn't git inside too, did she?"

"No, 'pears like she's done hid away--but I reckon they'll diskiver her afore she gits far."

"Don't let's waste no time, then. Ye've done splashed coal-oil on ther corner of ther warehouse, hain't ye?"

"Yes."

"Wa'al, come on. Ye've got yore torch ready. Let's tech her off. He thinks he's safe enough inside thar, but right shortly he'll sing another tune."

Alexander fell, for a moment, into a tremor and chill of wild panic. Suddenly as a revelation, yet beyond all shadow of doubt, she knew that the man who was doomed to a certain and most horrible death was, to her, the person of supreme consequence in all the world. The dynamic qualities of Halloway were nothing and less than nothing, now. She wanted for always that gentle strength and whimsical smile that were soon to be licked up in flame and torture. If this man were not saved she could, herself, no longer endure to live--and there was no way of saving him!

While Alexander crouched there with her blood congealed she saw the torch applied, saw its flame leap ravenously to the welcome of the kerosene and secure a hold upon the building itself as sure and tenacious as the grip of a bulldog's clamped jaws.

The plotters who fired the elevator showed her only their backs.

How long would it be before the man inside recognized the acrid odor and realized his fate? What would he do then? Presumably he would dash for the door, and there both flame and rifle fire would be awaiting him.

The incendiaries had now passed around the corner of the house and the moonlight fell upon the long chute which ran almost vertically down to the railway tracks below. Into Alexander's mind shot a desperate resolution. It offered a slender chance at best--yet the only one.

Still for a moment, she questioned it. There were so many ways that it might turn out--and of them all, one only could possibly end in success.

Then she slipped over to the great handle that controlled the flow of grain, locked into place with its chain and padlock. If she were seen she would, of course, be killed, but the murder crew seemed to have massed at the front of the place now, watching the door, until the fire should take that task off their hands. The flames were crackling loud enough now to cover the noise which must attend her next move--and to afford her a light for her work.

A heavy iron bar lay on the ground and with it the girl forced the chain and bent all her strength to the great lever that should launch the stored wheat into its quicksand flow. She flung her good muscles and her substantial weight so fiercely into that effort that the shaft snapped at its fulcrum--but not until it had done its work.

Alexander rushed for the brow of the cliff, and this time she was not obstructed. The relaxed vigilance of a job well done had stolen upon the watchers.

The journey down the precipice was one that had its difficulties, and Alexander's brain was reeling with a score of terrors--yet somehow she reached the tracks.

O'Keefe would not be in the wheat bin itself, she reflected. It would be dark in there too--until the light became a glare of death. Unless he chanced to hear, through other and fiercer sounds the soft flow of the myriad kernels, he would have no means of knowing that one desperate way was being opened to him. Even then his single hope would lie in quickness of perception and a sureness of judgment that acted flawlessly and smoothly under a supreme strain.

If he did see that the wheat was running out and did not wait for it all to spill itself, he would be sucked into its tide only to emerge dead. For it flowed slowly, pressing in every direction, and it would inevitably strangle the breath out of his lungs.

Even if he were judging all these odds with a meticulous nicety, Alexander questioned herself breathlessly, would there be time to wait for the full store to flow through that narrow channel? It was a race between a slow tide which could not be hurried and another which rushed on with the devouring fury of mania.

The girl threw herself down beside an empty freight car and dug her cold finger nails into her hot temples. She could hear the steady stream of wheat flowing into the bin there, and the deadly slowness of its progress through the hopper was driving her mad. The elevator she could not see, but by lifting her head, she could see out all too clearly the crimson sky overhead. _

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