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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Night Riders, by Henry C. Wood
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Night Riders
+       A Thrilling Story of Love, Hate and Adventure, Graphically
+       Depicting the Tobacco Uprising in Kentucky
+
+Author: Henry C. Wood
+
+Release Date: June 21, 2011 [EBook #36487]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE NIGHT RIDERS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Garcia, Moti Ben-Ari and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Kentuckiana Digital Library)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+YOUR UNCLE SAM
+
+OWNS A GREAT NAVY
+
+A very important adjunct of Government.--You and everybody
+must be interested in it.
+
+[Illustration: A Submarine Boat. A new "wrinkle" in warfare.]
+
+THE AMERICAN BATTLESHIP
+
+AND LIFE IN THE NAVY
+
+By THOS. BEYER, a Bluejacket
+
+is the most authoritative as well as the most readable book published on
+the subject. Also Humorous Man-o'-War Yarns. =40 full-page half-tones,
+including Rear-Admiral Evans' flagship "Connecticut," and a lithographed
+map, in four colors, of the cruise around the world by the U. S. fleet,
+1907-1908.=
+
+EXTRA SILK CLOTH, GOLD TITLE, $1.25
+
+
+At all bookstores and book supply houses, or sent postpaid, on receipt
+of price, by
+
+LAIRD & LEE, Publishers, 263-265 Wabash Avenue, CHICAGO
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: DRESSED IN HER HUSBAND'S CLOTHES, SHE LED THEM TO THE
+TOBACCO BARN.]
+
+
+
+
+"_A fence between makes love more keen_."
+
+THE
+NIGHT RIDERS
+
+A Thrilling Story of Love,
+Hate and Adventure, graphically depicting the
+Tobacco Uprising in Kentucky
+
+BY
+HENRY C. WOOD
+
+"_Who warms in his bosom the eggs of hatred hatches
+a nest of snakes_."
+
+[Illustration: Publisher's logo.]
+
+CHICAGO
+LAIRD & LEE, PUBLISHERS
+
+
+
+
+Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1908,
+BY WILLIAM H. LEE,
+in the office of the Librarian of Congress, at
+Washington, D. C.
+
+DRAMATIC RIGHTS RESERVED BY THE AUTHOR.
+
+
+
+
+_Preface_
+
+
+_The author has cleverly interwoven a tale of absorbing heart interest
+with a graphically depicted view of the present Tobacco Troubles in
+Kentucky and the exciting times when the people formed into bands, known
+as THE NIGHT RIDERS, to protest against what they considered the unjust
+tax of the Toll Gate System. These protests were of a strenuous nature,
+not unlike those of the tobacco-growing section today, and as the
+characters in the story are real, live beings, who did things, the
+reader's interest never flags._
+
+_THE PUBLISHERS._
+
+[Illustration: A troop of riders]
+
+[Illustration: BRACING HIMSELF IN HIS STIRRUPS, MILT CRIED HURRIEDLY TO
+JUDSON: "LEAP UP BEHIND ME!"--_Page 130_.]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Title and author with the image of a rider.]
+
+THE NIGHT RIDERS
+By
+Henry Cleveland Wood
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+The early morning sunlight entered boldly through the small panes of
+glass into the kitchen of the toll-house and fell in a checkered band
+across the breakfast table set against the sill of the one long, low
+window.
+
+The meal was a simple one, plainly served, but a touch of gold and
+purple--royal colors of the season--was given it by a bunch of autumn
+flowers, golden-rod and wild aster, stuck in a glass jar set on the
+window sill.
+
+A glance at the two seated at each end of the narrow table would have
+enabled one to decide quickly to whom was due this desire for
+ornamentation, for the mother was a sharp-featured, rather
+untidy-looking woman, on whom the burden of hard work and poverty had
+laid certain harsh lines not easily eradicated, while the daughter's
+youth and comeliness had overcome them as a fine jewel may assert its
+beauty despite a cheap setting.
+
+The sun's lambent rays, falling across the girl's shapely head and
+shoulders, touched to deeper richness the auburn hair, gathered in a
+large, loose coil, that rested low upon her neck, and also accentuated
+the clear, delicately-tinted complexion like a semi-transparency that is
+given rare old china when the light illumines it.
+
+The meal was eaten almost in silence, but toward the end of the
+breakfast Mrs. Brown looked up suddenly, her cup of coffee raised partly
+to her lips, and said, in her querulous treble:
+
+"Sally, Foster Crain says aigs air fetchin' fo'hteen an' a half cents in
+town. Count what's stored away in the big gourd, when you git through
+eatin', an' take 'em in this mornin'."
+
+"How am I to go?" asked her daughter, looking up from her plate. "Joe's
+limping from that nail he picked up yesterday."
+
+"Likely somebody'll be passin' the gate that'll give you a seat. The
+Squire may be along soon." A certain inflection crept into the speaker's
+voice.
+
+"I'll walk," announced Sally, with sudden determination. "It's cool and
+pleasant, and I'd as soon walk as ride."
+
+The mother looked across furtively to where her daughter sat.
+
+"I don't see what makes you so set ag'in the Squire," she said,
+plaintively, a few moments later, as if she had divined her daughter's
+unuttered thoughts.
+
+"He's an old fool!" declared Sally, promptly.
+
+"An' it strikes me that you're somethin' of a young one!" retorted her
+mother sharply.
+
+The girl made no answer, save a perceptible shrug of her pretty
+shoulders, and soon afterward got up and began to clear away the
+breakfast dishes. Mrs. Brown sighed deeply.
+
+"Most girls would be powerful vain to have the Squire even notice 'em,"
+the mother continued, in a more persuasive tone, as a sort of balm
+offering to the girl's wounded feelings. She placed her cup and saucer
+in her plate and put back a small piece of unused butter on the side of
+the butter dish, then slowly arose from the table.
+
+"It's seldom a po' gyurl has such a good chance to better her condition,
+if she was only willin' to do so," she continued argumentatively, for
+the subject was a favorite theme with her, and she had rung its changes
+for the listener's benefit on more than one occasion. She gave her
+daughter a sidelong glance--partly of inquiry, partly of reproach--and
+turned to her work.
+
+Sally, with something like an impatient jerk, lifted from the stove the
+steaming kettle and poured a part of the hot contents into the dish-pan
+on the table, but she made no answer, though soon the clatter of tins
+and dishes--perhaps they rattled a little louder than usual--mingled as
+a sort of accompaniment to the reminiscent monologue that Mrs. Brown
+carried on at intervals during her work.
+
+"It's all owin' to the Squire's kindness an' interest in us that we're
+fixed this comfortable, for, dear knows I'd never got the toll-gate in
+the first place if it hadn't been for his influence, an' now, if you'd
+only give him any encouragement at all, you might be a grand sight
+better off. Such chances don't grow as thick as blackberries in summer,
+I can tell you."
+
+The dishes and tins rattled angrily, but Sally said not a word.
+
+"About the only good showin' a poor gyurl has in this world is to marry
+as well as she can, an' when she neglects to do this, she's got nobody
+to blame but herself--not a soul."
+
+Sally had the dishes all washed and laid in a row on the table to drain,
+and now she caught them up, one by one, and began to polish away
+vigorously, as if the effort afforded a certain relief to her feelings,
+since she had chosen to take refuge in silence.
+
+"S'posin' he _is_ old an' ugly," soliloquized Mrs. Brown, abruptly
+breaking into speech again, and seemingly addressing her remarks to the
+skillet she was then cleaning, and which she held up before her and
+gazed into intently, as a lady of fashion might do a hand glass at her
+toilet. "What o' that? Beauty's only skin deep, an' old age is likely to
+come to us all sooner or later. It's all the better if he is along in
+years," she added, with a sudden chuckle and a second furtive glance
+over the top of the skillet toward the girl, to see if she was
+listening. "Then he ain't so likely to live forever, an' a trim young
+widow, with property of her own an' money in bank, can mighty soon find
+a chance to marry ag'in, if she's a mind to."
+
+A cloud of anger swept over the listener's face, which the mother failed
+to see, as the skillet again intervened.
+
+"There ain't nothin' like havin' a home of your own, an' knowin' you've
+got a shelter for your old age--no, indeed, they ain't! The Squire's
+mighty well fixed; he's got a real good farm, an' turnpike stock, an'
+cash, an' a nice, comfortable house besides."
+
+"Comfortable!" exclaimed Sally, with a toss of her head, and breaking
+her resolve to keep silent. "It looks like a ha'nted barn stuck back
+amongst them cedar trees down in the hollow. No wonder his first wife
+went crazy an' hung herself up in the attic, poor thing! They say he
+treated her shameful mean."
+
+Sally had looked upon this house many times and with conflicting
+thoughts as she passed it now and then. An air of neglect and loneliness
+hung about the spot. The house, hopelessly ugly and angular, was set far
+back from the road in the midst of a large yard given over to weeds and
+untrimmed shrubbery, while a clump of gloomy-looking cedars defied even
+the brightness of sun and sky.
+
+"You can't put credit into everything you hear," admonished Mrs. Brown,
+breaking ruthlessly into her daughter's musings. "Besides, a spry young
+girl can pretty much have her own way when she marries a man so much
+older than herself.
+
+"There's Serena Lowe, that use' to be," she continued, reminiscently.
+"She an' her fam'ly was about as poor as Job's turkey when we went to
+school together, an' many's the time I've divided my dinner with her
+because she didn't seem to have any too much of her own.
+
+"But she had a downright pretty face--all white an' pink, like a
+doll's--an' it helped her to ketch old Bartholomew Rice, an' now she
+rides around in her own kerridge an' pair, mind you, an' no prouder
+woman ever lived this minute. You'd think from the airs she gives
+herself that she was born in the best front room on a Sunday.
+
+"The Squire's as good as hinted to me that if he could marry the one he
+wants, he wouldn't in the least mind goin' to the expense of paintin'
+an' fixin' up the place till you wouldn't know it," insinuated Mrs.
+Brown, dropping her voice to a more confidential tone.
+
+"He'd have to paint an' fix hisself up, too, till you wouldn't know
+_him_, either, before I'd even so much as look at him," tartly asserted
+Sally.
+
+"A tidy young wife could change his looks an' the looks of the house in
+a mighty little while, if she only had a mind to do so," suggested Mrs.
+Brown, in subtly persuasive tones. "It must be dreadful lonesome livin'
+as he does, with nobody to look after things."
+
+"He might have kept his nephew for company," insisted Sally, with a
+sudden ring of resentment in her voice. "He drove him away."
+
+"Which likely he wouldn't have done if Milt hadn't been so headstrong
+an' wild. You know the Squire's goin' to have his own way about things."
+
+"About _some_ things," corrected Sally.
+
+"Mebbe about all, sooner or later," said Mrs. Brown, in hopeful
+prediction. "He ain't a man to give up easy when he sets his mind in a
+certain direction."
+
+"Perhaps his nephew isn't, either," suggested her daughter, with a
+little tinge of color deepening in each cheek.
+
+"No, an' that's just the cause an' upshot of the whole trouble!" cried
+the mother, in a sudden flash of vehemence, dropping the persuasive
+tones she had heretofore employed for resentful chiding. "His nephew's
+at the bottom of it all, an' you seem ready an' willin' to throw away a
+good chance of a nice, comfortable home an' deprive me of a shelter in
+my old age just for the sake of that no-account Milt Derr, who happens
+to have smooth ways an' a nimble tongue. It looks like he's fairly
+bewitched you."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+A little later in the morning Sally tied on her sunbonnet, whose pale
+blue lining made a charming framing for her fresh complexion and pretty
+face, concealing it just sufficiently to make one keenly inquisitive to
+take a second longer glance beneath the ruffled rim.
+
+With the basket of eggs swung coquettishly on her plump arm, and a stray
+wisp or two of wavy hair escaping from its confines down her shapely,
+curving neck and throat, in protest at imprisonment, the girl set out
+walking toward the town, a mile away.
+
+Mrs. Brown had ingeniously delayed her daughter's going by finding
+several little duties for her to perform, hoping the while that before
+the girl should be ready to start the Squire would make his appearance
+and leave her no alternative but to accept a ride with him.
+
+The morning grew apace, however, and finally Sally set out alone, quite
+grateful for the Squire's tardiness, and partly amused, partly vexed,
+by her mother's thinly-veiled excuses for delay.
+
+As the girl walked along the road with the springing, elastic step of
+youth and perfect health, and the freedom of the far-stretching fields
+as a heritage, the fresh morning air caressing her cheeks brought forth
+a bloom as soft and delicate as the rose of a summer dawn, while her
+spirits, which had become somewhat dampened under her mother's recent
+bickerings, gradually grew soothed and calmed under the tranquil charm
+of the new-born day.
+
+Now and then a bird, startled at her approach, flew from hedge to hedge
+across the road, piping loudly in affected alarm as it went, while in a
+softer strain came the gentle lowing of cattle from a pasture near at
+hand, and in the tall grass and dusty weeds along the way the autumnal
+chorus of insects had begun, conducted by the shrill-toned cricket.
+
+At the top of the first hill that arose between the gate and town Sally
+paused a moment--not that she was tired, or even spent of breath--and
+looked back. The picture that she saw was one of serene beauty, with
+wide stretches of fallow fields, bathed in the golden tranquility of a
+perfect October day, and dumb with the spell of restfulness and mystic
+brooding that this season brings.
+
+In the far distance a long, ragged line of hills melted into the soft
+blue sky-line, and over these shadowy sentinels, standing a-row, the
+purplish haze of autumn hung like a diaphanous curtain stretching
+between the lowlands and the hill country.
+
+From her elevated vantage ground the girl could see the toll-house very
+distinctly, though she herself was partly hidden by a small clump of
+young locusts under which she had paused. As she looked toward her home
+the Squire's old buggy came in sight around a curve of the road and
+stopped at the gate. Her mother came out and presently pointed in the
+direction of town, while the Squire gave his horse a cut of the whip and
+started up the road at a much brisker pace, it seemed to Sally, than
+before the gate was reached.
+
+"Mother's told him that he might overtake me," she muttered, grimly
+smiling at the thought. "I'll see that he don't," she added,
+resolutely.
+
+She stood for a few moments debating the situation, then looked toward
+the town. The distance was but half traveled, and the Squire must
+certainly overtake her before her destination was reached. There was a
+smaller hill beyond, and toward this she now set out briskly, fully
+determined to cover as much of the way as possible, so that, if finally
+overtaken, the ride would prove but a short one at best.
+
+When she reached the brow of the second hill the Squire was lost to
+sight behind the first one, and just then a plan of escape happily
+suggested itself as she reached a low stone wall running for some
+distance along one side of the road. She lightly climbed the
+moss-covered stones and crouched down behind them in a clump of
+golden-rod, waiting in covert until the Squire should pass.
+
+Soon she heard an approaching vehicle, which she knew to be the Squire's
+from the familiar joggle of loose bolts, and close upon its coming
+another sound fell on her alert ear, as if a horseman were riding from
+the direction of the town. The person on horseback and Squire Bixler met
+and came to a halt in the middle of the road, almost in front of that
+portion of the stone wall behind which the girl had taken refuge.
+
+After the exchange of a brief greeting, the Squire said, abruptly:
+
+"Well, what progress have you made? Any?"
+
+"Well, Squire, I think he's goin' to jine," answered the horseman, in
+the peculiar drawling tones suggestive of the hill country, whose
+boundary lay purple and hazy along the distant horizon.
+
+"You _think_ he is?" cried the Squire impatiently, with a ripping oath.
+"What do you _know_ about it?"
+
+"That when I see him again he is to tell me if he's made up his mind to
+come to the next meetin' place. If he does, of course, he'll jine the
+band."
+
+"And what does the band propose doing?" asked the Squire.
+
+"To git free roads."
+
+"How?"
+
+"Not by waitin' on the courts; the people have tried that long enough.
+They're goin' to take things into their own hands a bit. They mean
+business."
+
+"Yes, and damn 'em, they'll find that others mean business, too!"
+retorted the Squire, impetuously. "However, keep your eyes and ears
+open, and you'll soon hear the jingle of money in your pockets."
+
+"I'll try to keep you posted, but it's risky business for me."
+
+"You're all safe," insisted the Squire, "and you're sure of good pay.
+I'd like to get the young rascal in the clutches of the law," added the
+speaker, with sudden vindictiveness, "and if ever I do, I'll promise to
+make it hot for him."
+
+"You can trap him before a great while, I think, or at least get him in
+so tight a place that it will be safer for him to leave this part of the
+country."
+
+"Well, if I can't run him to ground, I'd at least like to run him away,"
+admitted the Squire, frankly.
+
+"It's your best chance for winnin' the gal," said the horseman, with a
+meaning laugh.
+
+"You keep an eye on his movements, and I'll attend to winning the girl,"
+answered the other with a touch of resentment manifest in his tone.
+"Did you meet anybody between here and town?"
+
+"No. Was you expectin' to overtake some one?" questioned the horseman.
+
+"Well, nobody in particular," answered the Squire, evasively. "I was
+just thinking that there wasn't much travel over the road this morning."
+
+"Not as much as there will be when there's no toll to pay," said the
+other, with a meaning laugh, as he rode away.
+
+The girl, crouching amid the tall weeds, waited until the rattling
+vehicle was well over the intervening hill before she ventured from her
+hiding place. When she gained the road once more her face wore a grave
+and thoughtful look.
+
+It was evident that mischief was brewing in this quarter for somebody.
+Who was it the Squire was so eager to get into the clutches of the law,
+and what band was this person about to join? It seemed to be some secret
+and illegal organization. No names had been called, yet a sudden subtle
+intuition warned Sally that she was, in point of fact, one of the
+interested parties to the conversation just overheard, and that the
+other person who had gained the Squire's avowed enmity, and for whose
+speedy undoing he was even now planning, was none other than his own
+nephew and her sweetheart--Milton Derr.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+When the pretty toll-taker reached town she disposed of her basket of
+eggs at even a higher price than Foster Crain, the poultry vendor, had
+quoted--she was a famous hand at bargaining and a shrewd trader--then
+set about making some purchases.
+
+She saw the Squire's horse and buggy standing at a hitching post near
+the courthouse, and determined that she would wait until the vehicle had
+disappeared before she started back home. Therefore she dallied over her
+shopping in a truly feminine way, and dropped in to have a friendly chat
+with an acquaintance or two; then, noting the horse and buggy had gone,
+she finally started homeward.
+
+The day was now hastening toward noon, the sun had grown oppressive,
+and, with several bundles to carry, Sally felt that the return would not
+be so pleasant as the coming had been. She looked about her, hoping to
+find some one--that is, some one besides the Squire--who might be going
+in the direction of the new pike gate, and with a seat to offer, but no
+one seemed to be in town from her neighborhood on this morning, and so
+she set out alone.
+
+Just as Sally reached the edge of the town, where two streets
+intersected, who should drive up the other street but the Squire? The
+meeting was wholly an accidental one, but after her persistent efforts
+to avoid him all the morning, the encounter seemed like the especial
+workings of a perverse fate. The Squire was close upon her before she
+even saw him. There was no chance for escape or subterfuge.
+
+"Ah, Miss Sally! Good morning to you!" he cried, with one of his amatory
+ogles that always sent a cold chill over her and strongly aroused within
+her bosom a spirit of determined opposition. "I have been looking for
+you all the morning. Where have you been hiding yourself?" he asked, as
+he drove up to where she had reluctantly stopped on hearing her name
+called.
+
+"Behind the stone wall," Sally was half tempted to answer, wishing, at
+the moment, that she could have availed herself of its protection in
+the present instance; but she only nodded gravely and said that she had
+been making a few purchases for her mother.
+
+"I tried to overtake you early this morning," continued the Squire,
+glibly. "Your mother said you had been gone but a little while when I
+passed the gate. You must have walked pretty fast."
+
+"I did," acknowledged Sally, with a covert smile. "It was cool and
+pleasant walking."
+
+"Well, come! Put your bundles down in front and jump in," said her
+companion. "Riding's better than walking any day, and good company's
+better than either," he added, with a tender leer at her, which Sally
+pretended not to see.
+
+There was nothing for it but to accept the proffered seat. She did not
+dare openly to offend the Squire by a refusal to ride with him, though
+she would willingly have chosen the long, warm walk, even with the
+additional burden of her bundles, in preference to his company. As her
+mother had said only that morning, it was through his influence that she
+had been appointed keeper of the New Pike Gate, and it was due to him
+she now kept it, so Sally civilly thanked him and got into the buggy.
+
+"If I had counted on such good company, I would have had this old
+rattletrap cleaned up a bit," said the Squire, apologetically, as they
+drove off. "But, never mind!" he added, jocosely. "When we start out on
+our wedding trip, I'll buy a brand-new, shiny rig, out an' out."
+
+"_We?_" echoed Sally, with a certain sharpness of tone.
+
+"You don't suppose I'd care to go on a bridal trip alone, do you?"
+inquired the Squire, laconically, and with a wink of one watery eye.
+
+"I'm afraid you will, if you depend on me to go along with you,"
+answered Sally, dryly.
+
+"Now, my dear, you surely wouldn't be that cruel?" said the Squire,
+edging a little closer to Sally, who as promptly moved away. "Haven't I
+been depending on your going all the while, and haven't I said that I
+wouldn't have any other girl but you, though there's plenty would be
+only too glad to go for the asking?"
+
+"An' there's one that wouldn't," announced Sally, coolly.
+
+[Illustration: "WHEN WE START ON OUR WEDDING TRIP I'LL BUY A BRAND NEW,
+SHINY RIG."]
+
+"Then I can show her where she stands mightily in her own light," said
+the Squire, suddenly dropping into a more serious tone.
+
+"How so?"
+
+"By giving her some very good reasons why she should act differently."
+
+"What reasons?" asked Sally, arousing to some slight show of interest.
+
+"Well, now, we'll suppose, for instance, the girl to be you," began the
+Squire, argumentatively. "You and your mother are depending on the
+toll-gate for a living, and it makes you a comfortable one, at any rate.
+Did you know the toll-gate raiders were at work?" asked the Squire,
+abruptly.
+
+The girl caught her breath with a quick start.
+
+"No," she answered, quickly. "Where?"
+
+"Right here in this very county. They burned a toll-house just on the
+boundary line only the other night, and cut down the pole of one gate in
+the edge of this county last night, so I was told today," said the
+Squire, impressively.
+
+"I'm afraid we're going to have a deal of trouble over the matter before
+it's ended," he continued, thoughtfully, shrewdly following the
+impression he had evidently made on the mind of his hearer. "The spirit
+of lawlessness seems to be widely spreading."
+
+"Do you think there's any danger of the raiders payin' a visit to the
+New Pike Gate?" questioned Sally, anxiously.
+
+"I shouldn't be the least surprised," answered her companion, with a
+dubious shake of the head. "The night-riders seem determined to make way
+with all the toll-gates in this part of the country if they can."
+
+"I can't think they would harm us," insisted Sally, "two poor, helpless
+women."
+
+"Likely not, but if the raiders have made up their minds to have free
+roads, as they appear to have done, they would not hesitate to burn the
+toll-house over your heads, which would leave you and your mother
+without a shelter, don't you see?"
+
+The Squire paused, and the girl sat buried in deep thought for some
+moments.
+
+"In that case, what could you do or where could you go?" asked the
+Squire, at last breaking the silence that had fallen between them.
+
+"Heaven only knows!" cried the girl, earnestly.
+
+"Now, affairs stand just in this way," continued the Squire, craftily.
+"If the raiders should burn the toll-house--and it is a most probable
+thing, I fear--it would leave you two women in rather a bad plight. But
+if you'll only agree to marry me, why, there's a nice home waiting for
+you, and your mother will also have a comfortable shelter in her old
+age, and neither of you will have cause to worry about the future."
+
+The Squire paused, but Sally made no answer. She knew full well that his
+words were quite true concerning the dependence of her mother and
+herself on the toll-gate for a living. She also knew that as long as the
+Squire entertained the faintest hope of ultimately winning her the gate
+was secured to her mother, and therefore she had not felt troubled on
+this score; but now that a new and unlooked-for danger threatened in the
+unusual and unexpected presence of the raiders, she tremulously asked
+herself, "What, indeed, if the toll-houses were destroyed, would become
+of her and her mother?"
+
+The girl felt no fears for herself regarding the future--she was
+energetic and had been familiar with work all her life; it held no
+terrors for her; she could hire out--wash, cook, sew--perhaps some day
+marry the man of her choice when he should be in a position to take unto
+himself a wife; but, with her mother's welfare also to be considered,
+the matter grew far more complex.
+
+"Don't you see just how matters stand?" asked the Squire, persuasively,
+almost tenderly, breaking the long silence.
+
+Sally gravely nodded her head.
+
+"I see," she answered, in a low tone.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+It was close upon 10 o'clock at night--a late hour for a lonely traveler
+in this remote locality amid the hills--and Milton Derr was homeward
+bound. As he neared the vicinity of Alder Creek meeting-house, up in the
+hill country, another horseman came out of a lane into the public road
+just as he was passing.
+
+Hailing a fellow voyager, as was the custom of the neighborhood, Derr
+recognized an acquaintance and promptly checked his horse until the
+other came alongside.
+
+"Hello, Steve! Isn't it a little late for an honest man to be abroad?"
+Milton asked, after friendly greeting from his companion.
+
+"Well, yes, and it seems I'm not the only one in that plight," retorted
+the other, with the quick repartee belonging to these people.
+
+His companion laughed good-naturedly at the thrust, and the two rode on
+together for some little distance, when Milton Derr, suddenly changing
+the drift of the talk said:
+
+"Well, I've been thinking over that matter we were speaking about the
+other day."
+
+"To what purpose?" asked the other.
+
+"I'm in half a notion to become a member of the band."
+
+"The other half's needed before you can get in, you know," answered
+Steve, laconically.
+
+"Well, I'm nearing that point now," admitted Derr, after a thoughtful
+pause. "I think I should like to have some voice in this question of
+free roads myself, as it promises to be an important one."
+
+"In that case I can easily arrange it for you. There'll be but few men
+around here who won't belong to the band before toll-gate raiding is
+over," said the other, impressively. "Folks have been bled by fat
+corporations long enough."
+
+"When could I join?" asked Derr, after some moments of meditative
+silence.
+
+"When?" echoed his companion. "Tonight, if your mind's made up."
+
+"Well, then, it is," said Derr, decisively. "How am I to go about it?"
+
+"Just follow me. If you really mean business, I can take you straight
+to where the band is holding a meeting this very night."
+
+"All right," answered the prospective candidate. "Lead the way!"
+
+The two turned into a dirt lane beyond the meeting-house, Derr keeping
+close by the side of his guide, while the hoofbeats of the two horses
+suddenly grew muffled by the softer bed of the lane in exchange for the
+macadamized pike.
+
+There was no moon to light the way, and the faint starlight that had
+made easily traceable the white, dust-covered surface of the highway was
+now absorbed and lost in the dull clay of the lane. Where the trees and
+bushes overhung the path a dense obscurity prevailed. Both man and beast
+were familiar with night riding along country byways, however, so the
+two travelers rode rapidly on, unmindful of the darkness or the twisting
+road.
+
+A mile farther on they quitted the lane, passing through a gate into a
+fallow field adjoining, which they crossed, and finally came to the
+outer fringe of a dense thicket.
+
+Here they halted, while Steve, placing his fingers to his lips in a
+certain manner, blew a low, peculiar whistle, like the call of some
+sombre night bird, which was answered later from somewhere amid the
+bushes. Close upon the answering call a dark form emerged from the
+shadowy copse near at hand, and a voice asked gruffly:
+
+"Who goes there?"
+
+"Friends."
+
+"What are you seeking?"
+
+"Free roads."
+
+"Dismount!"
+
+Steve dropped from his horse and went forward to where the dark form
+stood, while Derr, with his ears alert and lively interest aroused,
+heard him announce that he had brought one who craved membership with
+the band.
+
+After learning the name of the candidate for initiation, the figure
+seemed to melt into darkness again, while Steve came back to his horse
+and companion to await the return of the messenger.
+
+"It's all right; come along!" said Steve at another signal from amidst
+the bushes. The two men quickly hitched their horses to some saplings
+growing near, and found a narrow path leading down between the
+underbrush. Steve led the way, Milton following close upon his
+footsteps, while the mysterious messenger, who wore a half-mask over the
+upper part of his face, brought up the rear. There was a tinge of
+romantic adventure about the whole affair that strongly appealed to the
+new candidate.
+
+The path led down to a secluded hollow in the midst of the thicket--a
+remote and lonely spot, far removed from human habitation, it seemed,
+and little liable to intrusion--a spot well chosen for a secret midnight
+rendezvous.
+
+In the midst of the copse lay a small clearing, and in its center the
+three men came suddenly upon a group gathered around a smouldering fire,
+built of brushwood piled against a log.
+
+The uncertain blaze but dimly lighted the scene, but it was sufficient
+to bring into clearer view the dark forms of a body of men vaguely
+outlined against the darker bushes surrounding them, while the faces of
+the members of this secret band were partly concealed under soft slouch
+hats, and strips of black cloth, such as the guide wore, tied over the
+upper part of the face, with holes cut in the cloth for the eyes.
+
+This partial concealment of the features gave an air of weird mystery to
+the secret conclave--a touch of the uncanny mingling with the strange
+and romantic.
+
+A swift thought darted into Milton Derr's brain as he suddenly recalled
+his sweetheart's words of warning given him at meeting the Sunday
+before, that perhaps he had been led into a trap, of whose setting his
+uncle was cognizant, and that the members of this secret organization
+meant to do him bodily harm.
+
+If such should be their will and purpose, he was entirely at their
+mercy. No friendly aid could reach him in this remote and dismal spot,
+where even a cry for help would die unheeded upon the still night air.
+Yet, as these disturbing thoughts darted through his excited brain, he
+stood erect and motionless, and his calm face gave no sign of inward
+fear. If he was called upon to yield his life it should be rendered as
+became a brave man, but he would endeavor to sell it as dearly as
+possible.
+
+Standing in that sombre spot, the spirit of distrust bearing heavily
+upon him, he gave a swift, sweeping glance of inquiry around, noting
+the shadowy forms of the men that seemed to merge into the impenetrable
+darkness, while the uncertain, flickering blaze of the fire but dimly
+lighted the gloomy depths of foliage beyond, rising like a mysterious
+barrier to shut out freedom and the outer world. The grim silence of the
+group surrounding him still further served to deeply impress the new
+candidate for initiation, and to make manifest the fact that whatever of
+good or evil might be in store for him, it was now too late to retract
+the words that had helped to bring him thither.
+
+The young man found himself vaguely hoping, as he glanced keenly from
+one to another of the silent brotherhood, that among these masked faces,
+whose fantastically concealed features were turned darkly in his
+direction, there might be at least some friendly and familiar ones if
+uncovered to the light.
+
+At the conclusion of the initiation, made yet more impressive to the
+candidate because of his lively imagination, aided and fed by the
+remoteness of the spot and the gloom of the night, after Derr had taken
+the solemn oath of the order to obey its captain and preserve all
+secrets, the raiders began to bare their faces to the new member.
+
+As the half-masks were raised, one by one, Milton Derr saw that several
+members of the band were acquaintances of his, one or two were more
+intimate friends, while others he knew only by sight and some were
+strangers.
+
+The captain was the last to remove his mask, and as he did so the new
+raider recognized in him the one man, of all others dwelling amid these
+hills, he least desired or expected to serve under--Jade Beddow.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+"Now, boys, to business!" cried the captain, briskly, as some of Milt's
+acquaintances gathered around him to give him a welcoming hand. "We have
+a little work before us tonight."
+
+Soon the sound of a small cavalcade, riding rapidly along the country
+roads, broke into the quiet of the night, perchance arousing some light
+sleeper as it passed, who, after listening drowsily to the retreating
+hoof-beats as they died away in the distance, would turn and mutter,
+"The Night Riders," then drift into slumber again.
+
+"Where are we going?" asked Milt, who rode by the side of Steve.
+
+"To make one less toll-gate."
+
+"Which one?" asked Milt, with an interest he did not care to betray.
+
+"It's the Cross-Roads Gate, I think. You can look for a lot o' fun
+tonight if it's that one, an' we get Maggie O'Flynn stirred up. She's a
+regular circus in herself." Steve chuckled audibly at the prospective
+entertainment.
+
+"It will be something like stirring up a den of wild-cats, not counting
+in Pat at all," Milt admitted.
+
+"Pat don't count; he's a coward, through and through. The fun will all
+be furnished by Maggie."
+
+"And we fellows had better look sharp," cautioned Milt. "Maggie's a
+pretty good shot, I've heard."
+
+"We've seen to it that she won't have a chance to draw a bead on any of
+us," admitted Steve. "She keeps a rifle at the gate, but one of the
+neighbors borrowed it this very mornin' to shoot a hawk, an' somehow
+forgot to carry it back. He won't think of it till in the mornin'.
+Maggie's tongue is all that's left to guard the gate."
+
+"And under ordinary circumstances that's sufficient," admitted Milt.
+
+The raiders soon came out upon a turnpike, and after a ride of a mile or
+two they reached a spot where the pike was intersected by another,
+crossed at right angles. At the juncture of the two roads stood the
+toll-house which had been chosen for the night's raid.
+
+A raider was stationed about a hundred yards from the gate to guard the
+approach from that direction, while the rest rode forward to where the
+double poles were now raised at this mid-hour of the night. Three of the
+horsemen passed through and took positions on the farther side of the
+toll-house, at about equal distances from it along the two roads.
+
+In the meantime the captain selected a man from among the members of the
+band, who was least known to the locality, to act as spokesman, and
+while the remaining raiders grouped themselves about the gate, a
+resounding knock was given at the toll-house door.
+
+"All roight! I'm afther comin'. Ye needn't break the dure down,"
+answered a sleepy man's voice, deeply tinged with Celtic brogue. "What
+the divil do ye want, anyway? The poles are raised!" the voice demanded
+immediately after.
+
+"We want these poles cut down," announced the spokesman of the band.
+
+"Begorra! an' it's the raiders!" Pat said in a husky voice to his
+awakened spouse.
+
+"The phwat?" asked Maggie, in a shrill tone, evidently raising up in
+bed.
+
+"Whist, honey! The raiders!" repeated Pat, in more cautious tones.
+
+"An' phwat do they want?" asked Maggie, in a still higher key.
+
+"They want the poles cut down," faltered Pat.
+
+"Indade! An' phwat do they mane wakin' up honest people this dead o' the
+night, axin' the loike o' that?" demanded his wife, shrilly. "Get the
+gun, Pat, an' shoot the dirty thaves!"
+
+Pat, shaking with excitement or fear, in a low, tremulous voice,
+inaudible to those without, reminded his spouse that the gun had been
+loaned out and was no longer there.
+
+"An' bad luck to the man that borrowed it!" cried the undaunted Maggie.
+"It's betther used to shoot raiders with thin hawks."
+
+"Get us an axe!" commanded the spokesman of the band, rapping sharply on
+the door.
+
+"It's out at the wood pile beyant the house," answered Pat, meekly.
+
+"Hush, you fool!" cried his wife, shrilly. "Phwat did ye tell 'em for?
+I'd 'a' seen the last wan o' thim to the divil first, where they'll go
+quick enough."
+
+Two of the raiders went in search of the axe, and soon its dull blows
+were heard on the hard, seasoned wood of one of the poles, while the
+sound of the cutting seemed to infuriate Maggie as nothing else had
+done.
+
+She sprang out of bed like a wildcat in nimbleness, and it took all the
+strength and persuasion that Pat could muster to keep her from opening
+the door and coming out into the midst of the raiders.
+
+"Whist, darlint! Be aisy, for the love of hiven!" implored her
+frightened spouse. "Ye'll bring down the wrath o' the whole gang on us
+wid sich wild cacklin'. Be quiet!"
+
+"Be quiet, indade! An' let thim prowlin' thaves cut down the poles an'
+take away our livin'? Not much!" cried Maggie, fiercely. "If I only had
+a gun, I'd loike to shoot the last wan o' thim--the dirty blackguards!"
+
+"Hush, me jewel, an' mebbe they'll only cut down the poles an' l'ave us
+in peace!" pleaded Pat.
+
+"I _won't_ hush!" screeched Maggie, growing angrier each moment. "If
+ye're skeert, ye c'n crawl under the bed an' hide, ye cowardly cur! I'll
+go out an' run the last murdherin' wan o' thim away."
+
+"Ye'll git the both of us kilt intoirely if ye don't dhry up wid yer
+clatter!" entreated Pat.
+
+"I know ivery dhirty mother's son av ye!" screamed Maggie, putting her
+mouth close to the keyhole of the door, from which Pat had taken the
+key, and hidden it. "I know ye all, an' I'll have ye in the pinitintiary
+by termorrer night, ye bloodthirsty divils--ye--"
+
+The rest of the sentence was suddenly muffled, as if Pat's hand had
+interposed, while a scuffling sound was heard inside the room that
+suggested he was trying to drag Maggie away from the door. The raiders
+crowded around the platform of the toll-house, listening in an ecstasy
+of delight.
+
+Presently a resounding whack was heard, followed by a howl of pain from
+Pat, whom Maggie had struck, and speedily she was back at the keyhole
+again.
+
+"Cut down the poles av ye want to, ye night-prowlin' rascals!" she
+bawled lustily. "I'll have 'em both up ag'in by daylight, an' I'd loike
+to see any sneakin' dog av ye git by an' not pay toll, ye thavin'
+robbers!"
+
+"She'll do it, too," muttered Steve, who was standing near the captain.
+"She'll have bran'-new poles up almost before we can get home."
+
+"The only way to get rid of this gate is to burn it, I think," said the
+captain, with an oath. "As she wants to come out so much, suppose we
+give her a chance. Get an armful of straw from the stable an' bring it
+here! We'll smoke her out."
+
+While Steve hurried off to obey the order, two of the others gathered up
+some of the dry chips and splinters of wood from the cut poles, and when
+Steve returned with the straw a fire was kindled on the platform in a
+sheltered corner, farthest from the door.
+
+As the flames quickly leaped up the walls of the toll-house, igniting
+the dry timbers, the flash of light, the smoke, the crackle of burning
+wood, all speedily revealed to the two within the building what was
+taking place without.
+
+"I tould ye to shut up, ye screechin' varmint!" cried Pat, in a
+terror-stricken voice. "They're burnin' us up aloive. The howly saints
+protect us!"
+
+Maggie gave a loud whoop, this time rather of fear than of rage, though
+the two were strongly blended.
+
+"Help! Murdher!" she shrieked.
+
+"I thought she'd change her tune, the wildcat!" muttered the captain,
+grimly.
+
+A few minutes later the back door of the toll-house was thrown quickly
+open, but as the two terror-stricken inmates of the burning building
+appeared in the doorway, ready to flee into the night, they were
+confronted by a couple of raiders with masks and drawn pistols.
+
+"Go back!" the men sternly commanded.
+
+"For the love o' hiven, don't shoot!" pleaded Pat.
+
+"Go back!" the men repeated, leveling their weapons threateningly.
+
+In silent terror the two obeyed and shiveringly drew back into the
+burning house. Dark spirals of smoke were by this time curling from the
+roof in several places, and soon little jets of flame thickly dotted it,
+shooting up from between the smoking shingles; then finally one broad
+sheet of flame overspread the top--a canopy of fire.
+
+Milt looked on in a sort of spell-bound fascination. What did the
+raiders mean to do? Surely not to burn these two helpless people within
+the toll-house. That were a crime far too serious for even this spirit
+of outlawry.
+
+He stood silent, watching with a growing fear the smoke escaping from
+the roof, then the little spurting jets of flame, and when they united
+in a broad, livid sheet, he felt no longer able to restrain his pity,
+but started to where the captain sat on his horse, calmly watching the
+proceedings, intending to petition him for mercy toward the two hapless
+ones within the doomed toll-house.
+
+Before he reached the leader of the band, however, the captain blew a
+sharp call on his whistle, and while the three outlying guards beyond
+the gate dashed up in answer to the summons, two of the raiders, at a
+sign from their leader, had broken in the front door, then, mounting
+their horses, the band rode swiftly down the road, after a shrill cry of
+"Free roads! Down with the toll-gates!"
+
+When Milt looked back he felt a wave of regret surge over him, as he
+saw, by the glare of the light, which was illuminating the landscape
+around, Maggie's lank figure looming up, tall and straight, in the
+middle of the pike, her long arms stretched out menacingly toward the
+retreating raiders, at whom she was doubtless hurling bitter,
+Celtic-tinged invectives, while Pat was rushing wildly in and out of the
+burning building, striving to save some of the few household
+effects--then a curve in the turnpike shut off a further view.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+Squire Bixler, president of the New Pike Road, sat before his wood fire,
+nodding under the genial warmth the flickering flames threw out across
+the broad hearth. The weekly town paper, over which he dozed and wakened
+by turns, now lay on the floor by his chair, having dropped from his
+relaxed fingers during his latest nap, while his spectacles, gradually
+slipping forward as his head dropped lower on his tobacco-stained shirt,
+now finally rested on the tip of his red nose, and threatened to fall
+each moment.
+
+Short puffs, as if he were still smoking, came at regular intervals from
+between his thick, partly-opened lips, although his cob pipe had
+followed his paper to the floor, and the spectacles seemed on the point
+of speedily joining them.
+
+To the most careless observer it was all too evident that no wifely care
+was present in the house of Bixler. A motley disorder, revealing many
+unsightly things, occupied the chimney corners, and encroached upon the
+hearth. From some nails upon the wall hung a saddle and harness,
+opposite stretched a line filled with long green tobacco like clothes
+swung out to dry. The tall mantelshelf was given over to old bottles,
+cob pipes, and a conglomerate mass of odds and ends of things--the
+accumulation of many moons, while dust and cobwebs gathered freely over
+all--a fitting tribute to the absence of womanhood.
+
+It was past the Squire's bedtime. In evidence he had removed his shoes,
+but seemed to have dropped asleep while looking over his paper, unless
+he had intentionally delayed his usual hour for retiring.
+
+Suddenly the sharp striking of several small pebbles thrown lightly
+against the window shutters partly aroused him from his nap, but not
+until the sound was repeated did he awake sufficiently to give heed to
+the signal.
+
+Lifting his head with a start, as one who has dropped asleep
+unwittingly, he adroitly caught his spectacles, with the skill of
+frequent practice, as they dropped from his nose, then glancing at the
+clock he got up hastily and went to the window whence the sound seemed
+to come.
+
+Cautiously raising the sash, that the servants might not be awakened in
+the ell of the house, the Squire opened one of the shutters carefully
+and looked furtively out. An interrogation followed, and an answer came
+from the darkness.
+
+"All right! I'll let you in." The Squire closed shutter and sash, caught
+up the candle, which was burning low in the socket, and went into the
+front hall.
+
+When he had unlocked and unbarred the door, a sudden gust of wind blew
+out the candle's flame as the visitor was admitted, but the fire-light
+served as a beacon, and while the host was fastening the door the
+belated visitor passed through the hall into the Squire's sitting room,
+and walked over to where the fire threw out a grateful warmth over his
+chilled frame.
+
+"It's keen and frosty out tonight," said the visitor, spreading his
+hands wide to the blaze.
+
+"I am more interested in other news you may bring," answered the host,
+setting down the candle, from whose black wick a tiny spiral of smoke
+arose and floated away into the dim shadows that hovered about the room.
+The Squire clung to early customs, and would not use a lamp. "An
+invention of man and the devil," he insisted.
+
+"Well, I've got some news for you this time--some good news," the
+visitor said, slowly cracking the joints of his fingers as he stood
+before the fire.
+
+"Let's have it!" insisted the Squire briefly.
+
+"Somethin' you'll be right glad to hear," continued the other, dallying
+with the subject, as if loth to part with so choice a morsel.
+
+"Well, I'm waiting to hear it," yawning, to call attention to the late
+hour.
+
+"I'm chilled through an' through," muttered the visitor, apparently
+unmindful of the Squire's impatience, and giving a shiver, partly
+genuine, partly affected, as he glanced up at the motley collection of
+bottles on the chimney shelf. "Don't you keep anything warmin'?" he
+added, turning to the host.
+
+"Do you want a dram?"
+
+The guest chuckled audibly at the Squire's powers of divination, and
+with eager eyes followed the portly figure to a small press in the side
+of the chimney. The host brought forth a bottle and glass, which he
+placed on the candle stand, and, without further invitation, the guest
+quickly caught up the bottle and poured the amber liquor into the glass,
+filling it to the brim. He emptied it at a gulp, then slowly refilled
+the glass and reluctantly handed back the bottle to the Squire, who
+reached out impatiently for it.
+
+"That warms me up powerful," said the visitor, draining the glass with
+evident enjoyment, eyeing the bottle longingly as he spoke, though the
+Squire did not again offer it. "I felt like an ice house just now."
+
+"Let's do business," the host suggested.
+
+"Well, he's j'ined the night riders."
+
+"When?"
+
+"The night they burned the Cross Roads gate."
+
+"So he had a hand in that deviltry?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I'm glad to hear it; what else?"
+
+"The raiders air a-goin' to make another raid."
+
+"When?"
+
+"Tomorrow night, I think. I'll find out for certain tomorrow, an' post
+you. It's court day, you know, an' the word will be passed around among
+the men when they come to town."
+
+"Where shall I see you?" asked the Squire.
+
+"We mustn't be seen talkin' together," said the visitor thoughtfully.
+"It might help to fasten suspicion on an innocent man, you see," he
+added, with a leer of cunning. "I'll tell you what would be a better
+plan. I'll start back home just at five, by the town clock. I've got a
+good ways to go, an' likely's not many will be on the road at that hour
+of the day. You can leave a little earlier than five, an' I'll overtake
+you about the top of the first hill, under the big elm."
+
+"Very well," agreed the Squire.
+
+"I think I've about earned one hundred of that money already, Squire,"
+suggested the visitor, looking keenly at his companion.
+
+"Won't tomorrow do? This may be a false alarm," objected the Squire.
+
+"No, it isn't; an' besides, I've told you some other things you wanted
+to know."
+
+"But you're in no particular hurry," the old man insisted, the ruling
+passion of avarice strong upon him.
+
+"Yes, I'm a-needin' it bad. I've got to have some money early tomorrow,
+an' I couldn't very well be seen followin' you around on court day. You
+promised to pay when I brought the word."
+
+"Here, then," said the Squire reluctantly unlocking a small drawer in
+the base of the tall clock and bringing forth a roll of bills wrapped in
+a piece of newspaper. "Here's a hundred dollars in small bills. Count
+them over."
+
+"It's two hundred dollars for givin' information that will lead to the
+arrest of any of the raiders," said the visitor meditatively, after he
+had carefully counted the money. "Two hundred's the reward."
+
+"Yes, one hundred tonight, which you have now received, and the other
+when the raiders have been caught. An extra hundred comes out of my own
+pocket, you understand, when a certain kinsman of mine is safe behind
+the jail bars. This is good money, easily made."
+
+"Well, I d'no' as it's so easy when you risk your neck to git it, as
+I've done."
+
+"What gate do you think they will raid next?" asked the Squire.
+
+"I don't know yet, but I'll be posted by tomorrow evenin'. There's
+another thing, too, I wanted to say to you," added the visitor
+impressively. "It's concernin' the safety of a particular friend of mine
+who belongs to the raiders. I must have your promise not to trap him
+along with the others."
+
+"How can that be done if he's with the band?"
+
+"Mighty easy. I'll see that he's sent on a little ahead of the others to
+guard the road in front, and you must give strict orders that no firing
+is to be done until this one is safely through the gate. When he hears
+the first shot he can then look out for hisself, an' let the ones behind
+do the best they can."
+
+"So _you_ want to come out with a whole skin?" said the Squire, with a
+keen glance at his visitor.
+
+"I didn't say anything about myself; I said a friend."
+
+"All right! I understand. The man in front is to get away, but the rest
+are to be bagged. You'll give me the full particulars of the proposed
+raid tomorrow evening, then?" said the Squire, rising from his chair, to
+signify that the interview was at an end.
+
+"Yes; an' when I come again, you'll have the rest of the money ready for
+me?"
+
+The Squire nodded.
+
+"Have it in small bills," the visitor suggested. "I can pass 'em
+easier."
+
+A few minutes later the front door was closed upon the mysterious
+visitor, and the Squire came back into the room softly rubbing his hands
+with apparent satisfaction. Indeed, his next words signified as much.
+
+"Ah! my dear nephew!" he cried, gleefully; "before many more nights have
+passed I think I will have you in a ticklish position where your love
+affairs will not run as smoothly as you might wish. Then comes _my_
+opportunity."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+
+Court day brought ever a large and motley crowd to town.
+
+It is the farmer's levee, his monthly holiday--a proper time for
+friendly intercourse and barter. Usually busied in the field or about
+the farm, he sees little of the social or business world except through
+the medium of county court day.
+
+On such occasions most of the tillers of the soil quit work and come in
+from the surrounding country and the neighboring hills--even from
+further outlying villages and adjacent counties. Some come on business,
+some on pleasure bent, but whether for recreation or profit, a goodly
+crowd convenes, the day in itself an all-sufficient excuse for the act.
+
+A Kentucky court day possesses a marked social feature peculiarly its
+own. The men meet friends and neighbors in a social mood; renew
+acquaintances of long standing, and enjoy making new ones; they
+exchange political opinions, disseminate local news, trade, swap, buy or
+sell; the women come to town, exchange country produce for shopping
+bargains, and learn something of the prevailing mode from their more
+stylish sisters who are in closer touch with the outer world.
+
+Occasionally it comes to pass that personal grievances and feuds of long
+standing, or even family differences, are settled by a court day
+encounter, wherein the all-too-ready knife or pistol helps to play the
+tragic part; but oftener a spirit of good-fellowship prevails, and the
+social glass binds friendly neighbors into boon companions.
+
+There is yet a more God-fearing element--the bone and sinew of pioneer
+strength and hardy manhood, men of simple faith, who walk sedately in
+the paths of sobriety and peace, whose lives are as quiet and gentle as
+the folk who once "dwelt in the basin of Minas." And in all, it is a
+strangely mixed gathering of good and evil--a Kentucky court day.
+
+A larger crowd than usual was in town on this particular October
+morning. Most of the crops had been laid by, and even the more careful
+husbandmen felt as if they might safely indulge in a holiday without
+disquieting thoughts of work done and duties neglected; but there were
+other reasons yet to account for the large attendance on this day.
+
+An undercurrent of suppressed excitement was manifest throughout the
+community, for the recent toll-gate raids, and the rumored threats
+against gates still standing in the county, made the question of free
+roads an all-absorbing topic.
+
+The greater number of farmers were in favor of no toll, as was naturally
+the case, though some suggested a new and lower scale of rates, while
+the more conservative looked with apprehension on the spirit of
+lawlessness that seemed suddenly to flame into a passion that might grow
+alarmingly akin to anarchy, if the destructive tendency were left
+unchecked.
+
+These more prudent, law-abiding men counseled patience and forbearance
+until the voice of the people should decide the question of free roads
+at the next election, and the slow-moving machinery of legislation give
+by purchase the right of travel without the payment of toll, which many
+cried out against as an unjust and excessive tariff.
+
+A discordant note had for a long time prevailed among these dwellers of
+the hills in opposition to the turnpike corporations, and this
+antagonistic spirit had intensified and spread, slowly leavening the
+disquiet, until it had become dangerously like a hot-bed of communism,
+only waiting for a daring hand to stir it into flame and action, and now
+this had finally come to pass.
+
+The recent bold work of the raiders was guardedly discussed in public,
+for one did not always know but that a partisan to the cause might be
+the listener. A few non-partisans who had been overbold in their
+denunciation of the raiders' methods of acquiring free roads, had
+received anonymous letters warning them to silence, while a crude
+drawing of hangman's noose, or skull and crossbones lent significant
+weight to the message.
+
+Since the burning of the Cross Roads gate, the county court had offered
+a reward of two hundred dollars for information that would lead to the
+apprehension and capture of any of the raiders, while numerous rumors
+were afloat concerning them. It was hinted that Maggie O'Flynn had
+recognized two or three members of the band the night of the attack on
+the gate, and that several arrests would soon follow.
+
+Men from adjacent counties brought the news of toll-gates raided near
+their homes. The infection was rapidly spreading, and it seemed that the
+fiat had gone forth dooming the collecting of tolls, and forecasting the
+speedy downfall of all the gates.
+
+Several times through the day Squire Bixler saw the man with whom he had
+held converse the previous night, but on meeting him now, in the broad
+light of day, an indifferent nod on the one hand, and a friendly,
+"Howdy, Squire!" on the other, was all that passed between the two men.
+
+Milton Derr was also in town, but no recognition whatever took place
+between him and his uncle when they met by chance some two or three
+times, face to face, on the crowded street.
+
+The Squire shrewdly kept his eyes open and tried to bear in mind the
+different persons his confidential informant held converse with during
+the day; but this one was here and there, with a nod, a hand-shake or a
+friendly greeting, having, it seemed, no especial business with any one.
+
+Along toward five o'clock (for the dusk came on early these brief
+October days) the Squire got his horse and started homeward. He had
+chosen to ride a horse on this occasion, for he did not wish to be
+importuned to give any one a seat in his buggy on the way back, and
+there was no prospect of having the pretty toll-gate keeper for company,
+for she was helping her mother collect toll, as it was court day.
+Moreover, for special reasons of his own, the Squire desired to be
+alone.
+
+He jogged along at a moderate pace until he reached the top of the first
+hill; then he let his horse drop into a slow walk, for, on looking back,
+he saw in the waning light a horseman approaching from the town, and
+judging that it was the person he wanted to see, he came to a halt in
+the road when the overhanging elm was reached.
+
+"What news?" asked he, as the other rode up.
+
+"The night riders will be out again tonight, sure an' certain."
+
+"About what time will they make a raid?"
+
+"Along towards midnight--perhaps a little later."
+
+"And what gate will they attack?"
+
+"This one," answered his companion, nodding down the road.
+
+"What! the New Pike gate?" exclaimed the Squire.
+
+"Yes, it was decided at the last moment by the captain."
+
+"Humph! I shouldn't think Milt would want to take a hand in that,"
+muttered the Squire, reflectively.
+
+"He don't know yet that it's to be this one, I think; but even if he
+did, he wouldn't dare to refuse to go along. He's taken the oath to obey
+the orders that are given him, an' now he'll have to do it, whether it
+pleases him or not. You'll have that other hundred all right when I come
+to see you tomorrow night or the next?"
+
+"That's what I agreed to do, isn't it?" demanded the Squire, testily.
+
+"Yes, of course, Squire, of course, only I wanted to remind you so you
+wouldn't forget to have it on hand, an' in small bills, too. A man
+don't feel like riskin' his neck at this business, you know, unless he's
+sure of gettin' well paid for it."
+
+"You've already received more than yours is worth, I'm thinking,"
+growled the Squire. "If things turn out all right, though, and the young
+man is safely jailed, I shan't mind giving you the extra hundred out of
+my own pocket," added he, melting into good humor again, as he rode off
+homeward.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+
+Early on the morning of this October court day, Sophronia Saunders, a
+friend and former schoolmate of the pretty toll-taker, went over to a
+neighbor's to see the housewife about weaving a rag carpet, the
+materials for which were already cut and sewed and rolled into balls
+ready for the loom.
+
+Sophronia had taken an early start, for she wished to know just how much
+carpet chain would be needed, so that her father could bring it from
+town with him when he returned.
+
+The air was full of crisp freshness, which brought a wholesome glow to
+the girl's plump cheeks as she walked briskly along down the dirt lane.
+Fallow fields stretched out on either hand, unrolling rich, varying
+shades of yellow and brown, reaching away in undulating waves to where
+the frost-painted hills stood in brave array, like gay canvases
+belonging to some gorgeous theatrical scene.
+
+Far to the southward they extended--a long, irregular chain, whose
+rugged heights were gradually softened and subdued by distance and the
+October mists until they finally seemed but jagged banks of amethystine
+clouds piled high against the horizon.
+
+Presently the girl reached a small wood that lay between her and her
+destination, and after a moment's pause, and a glance of maidenly
+precaution around, she agilely climbed the rail fence that enclosed its
+boundary, and started in a diagonal line across the wooded space to
+shorten her walk.
+
+Within the wood the pensive presence of Autumn dwelt. The low, gentle
+rustling of falling leaves in a plaintive murmuring, as if regretful at
+approaching dissolution, greeted the sensitive ear at every turn. The
+drowsy air seemed haunted by vague faint-spirited voices whispering
+tenderly of the past summer's joys, while in sharp contrast, now and
+men, the sound of a dropping hickory nut from high up amid the branches
+where some frisky squirrels were at play, broke as a discordant note
+into the softer leaf-music of the trees.
+
+The ground beneath her feet was soft-carpeted with fallen leaves,
+drifting into rich mosaics, changing with each passing wind to new
+kaleidoscopic patterns of beauty and color.
+
+At the further edge the woodland terminated abruptly in a deep ravine,
+which the girl must cross before her destination was reached. It was a
+lonely, picturesque spot, skirted by underbrush and cedar bushes, and
+lined with gray, lichen-clad boulders, jutting out boldly in fantastic
+shapes on either hand. Overarching trees and vines shut out the brighter
+daylight, and made a subdued twilight that kept the spot cool and
+shadowy even on the warmest of summer days--a hidden sylvan retreat fit
+for woodland nymph or dryad.
+
+When the girl reached this ravine she skirted its edge until she should
+come to a place where an easier descent could be made into its shadowy
+depths, and had gone but a little way along its rim when, on glancing
+through an opening between the bushes, she caught sight of her neighbor,
+Steve Judson, coming up the dry, rocky bed of the stream, which in the
+rainy season was changed into a brawling torrent. He had neither seen
+her nor heard her approach, and was quite unaware that anyone was near.
+
+Sophronia was just on the point of calling out and asking him to give
+her a helping hand in crossing the ravine, when something in his
+manner--a certain cautiousness of movement and an alertness of
+bearing--caught her attention and aroused her curiosity; so, keeping
+silent, she drew back amid the bushes and peered through a small space
+between the branches.
+
+Steve clambered up the rocky defile until he reached a spot almost
+opposite to where Sophronia stood concealed. After a cautious glance
+around, he drew from under his coat an object that looked, from her
+point of observation, like an ordinary fruit jar.
+
+He held the jar up in front of him a few moments, looking into it with
+close attention, turning it slowly around as he did so, then crossed
+over to the opposite side of the ravine, where, after placing his burden
+carefully at the foot of a cedar tree, he began to dig a hole in the
+ground near by.
+
+The earth was light and yielding--the rich deposit of leaf mold of many
+years accumulation--and in a short time a hole was dug sufficiently
+deep for its purpose, the jar was placed in it and covered with dirt.
+Some fallen leaves and loose pebbles were next scattered over the
+recently disturbed spot, and finally a large, flat rock laid just above
+the place where the jar had been buried.
+
+After another cautious look of inquiry about him, when Steve had arisen
+to his feet, he turned and went down the ravine in the direction of his
+house.
+
+Sophronia, wondering vainly what it was that her neighbor had hidden so
+carefully, and with such an air of secrecy, waited until he had been
+lost to sight amid the foliage, then slowly followed the course he had
+taken.
+
+Soon she reached her destination. The Judson home was but a humble one,
+a dilapidated log cabin perched on the top of a rocky hill that
+gradually descended to the ravine which its owner had but lately
+quitted.
+
+An air of neglect and shiftlessness hung heavily about the spot, for
+Steve was a person who would willingly sit for hours on a rail fence
+industriously whittling and talking politics, which was a favorite
+theme, but when it came to the driving of a needed nail in a loose
+plank, or repairing a break in a fence, he seldom had the time or
+inclination to engage in so prosaic an occupation. Selling off the stock
+was preferable to mending the fence, and when a shed tumbled down the
+broad canopy of heaven must thenceforth of necessity be a shelter.
+
+Judson was making ready to go to town when the visitor arrived. He had
+not missed a court day since early boyhood, and no farm work was ever
+sufficiently important to keep him at home on such occasion.
+
+When the girl explained her errand, he readily agreed to deliver any
+message she might wish to send her father, and to see to the bringing
+out of the needed carpet chain, while Mrs. Judson said, persuasively:
+
+"'Phrony, I do wish you'd stay an' show me about cuttin' out a sack
+pattern. I'm as lost as if I was in the Roosian sea when it comes to
+cuttin' out things."
+
+"An' it won't be puttin' you to too much trouble to see about the
+chain?" the girl asked of the man.
+
+"It's just as easy as rollin' off a log," answered the complaisant host,
+who was of a most obliging disposition, and ever ready to attend to
+anybody's and everybody's business save his own.
+
+"Now, Steve Judson, don't you forgit that carpet chain!" his wife called
+out admonishingly, in a shrill treble, as her husband rode off. "Men air
+sech forgitful critters 'bout rememberin'," she added complainingly to
+her visitor.
+
+It was close upon noon when Sophronia started home, and she once more
+shortened the distance, choosing the ravine, and the way through the
+woods.
+
+"I do wonder what he was buryin' so carefully up there?" she asked
+herself as she stopped in the ravine and looked up its shadowy depths.
+
+The spot at which she had seen her neighbor digging was only a short
+distance away; in fact, she could almost see the exact location from
+where she now stood. She hesitated and gazed longingly up the ravine. A
+daughter of Eve, the impulse of investigation was strong upon her. If
+she only dared to venture farther up the shaded recesses to the spot
+where Steve had been digging! And why should she not dare? She would be
+quite free from interruption, for her neighbor was safe in town by now,
+and this remote place was rarely frequented.
+
+She dallied with the temptation, casting yearning glances toward the
+charmed locality, and finally, almost before she realized the fact, she
+was standing beneath the very tree at whose foot the mysterious
+interment had taken place but a few hours ago.
+
+With a glance of caution about her, such as he, too, had given, she
+suddenly stooped down and with some little difficulty moved the large
+flat rock that had been placed to mark the spot. Near by she found a
+sharp-pointed stick, the same that he had used, and with it began to
+scrape away the loose earth which hid the object of her search.
+
+It proved to be a glass fruit jar, a plain jar having a metal top
+screwed down on a ring of rubber, and within was a roll of something
+wrapped in a scrap of newspaper. What in the world could it be?
+
+Sophronia tried the lid, but it was firmly screwed on. As she had gone
+this far, however, she did not mean to be thwarted at such an early
+stage of her investigation, so grasping the jar tightly between her
+knees, she made a more effective effort at loosening the lid, and soon
+had the top off and the contents of the jar in her lap.
+
+She gave a low exclamation of astonishment as she unrolled to view a
+number of bank notes, mostly new, and of small denominations--ones, twos
+and fives. As Sophronia carefully fingered the bills, noting their value
+and the number the roll contained, her eyes opened wide with surprise at
+the sight of so much money.
+
+No wonder her neighbor had exercised such caution in concealing his
+treasure. Here was a larger amount of money than she had ever imagined
+he would possess. How had he ever come into the ownership of such a sum?
+Could he have stolen it, and from whom?
+
+The girl hastily counted the bills. "_Goodness!_" she exclaimed. It was
+ninety-five dollars in all--a small fortune indeed for a person in
+Judson's situation. How came he with such booty, for booty it must be,
+since he had never been known to save a dollar in his life, yet here was
+quite a snug little fortune that had been acquired by some unknown
+means.
+
+[Illustration: SOPHRONIA SOON HAD THE LID OFF, AND THE CONTENTS OF THE
+JAR IN HER LAP.]
+
+As Sophronia puzzled over the matter, her eyes chanced to fall on the
+scrap of paper in which the money had been wrapped, and smoothing out
+the paper, she slowly read the reward offered by the President of the
+Turnpike Corporation, for any information that would lead to the arrest
+and conviction of the raiders, whose recent deeds of violence were a
+menace to the community.
+
+So this, then, was a solution to the problem vexing her brain! Steve
+Judson must have betrayed the raiders, and this money was the larger
+part of the spoils he had received. He certainly could not have
+accumulated such an amount otherwise, for his ill-kept, sterile patch of
+ground scarcely yielded a poor living.
+
+As Sophronia sat looking first at the money then at the printed reward,
+the fear of detection suddenly came over her. Whether it was ill-gotten
+gain, or not, the money certainly was not hers, and she had no right to
+thus unearth it from its secret hiding place. Suppose some one should
+discover her in the act!
+
+Alarmed at the mere thought, she hastily wrapped the scrap of paper
+around the money, and dropping the roll in the jar, screwed on the lid
+and reburied the treasure, taking care to leave the place looking quite
+as she had found it. Then she hastily quitted the spot.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+
+Night.
+
+The dark forms of a group of men were brought out in sharp contrast
+against the fitful light of a small brushwood fire built in a sheltered
+spot among the hills.
+
+A few faint stars dotted the moonless sky, and the night air was raw
+with the frosty breath of late October.
+
+Some of the men were sitting about on scattered blocks of rejected
+stone, left in the abandoned quarry years before when the abutment of a
+bridge had been built over a small, swift stream near by, but the great
+number of raiders stood in careless attitudes around the fire, talking
+or smoking.
+
+"Captain's late," one of the men in the foreground said.
+
+"I heard the ring of Black Devil's hoofs comin' up the hill just a
+moment ago," a raider answered.
+
+As he spoke, he thrust a fresh supply of brush into the fire, and
+briskly stirred the bed of embers until it glowed with sudden fervor,
+while a shower of sparks arose and fluttered into the night like a swarm
+of fireflies rudely disturbed.
+
+"Be saving of the brush," cautioned one of the raiders. "There may be
+officers of the law abroad tonight."
+
+"It is money to them if they bag us," answered the other, with an
+expressive shrug of the shoulders and a hoarse laugh. "There's a reward
+of two hundred dollars offered for information concerning the raiders,
+or night-riders, as some folks call us."
+
+"Perhaps some one's after it," suggested another.
+
+"And what good 'd the reward be? It would melt or burn where we'd send
+him."
+
+"Is it the gate at the stone bridge tonight?"
+
+"No, I have heard it's to be another--one more familiar to some of our
+members," the speaker continued, casting a furtive glance at a number of
+the band standing near.
+
+"Suppose it should be the pole of the New Pike gate, and Milt was chosen
+to do the cutting?" The man at the fire spoke tauntingly.
+
+"The pole of the New Pike gate won't be cut tonight, I'm thinking," said
+Derr quietly.
+
+"Not if the Captain commands it?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Listen, you fellows--hear what this man's sayin'!"
+
+"And what's more to the point, I'm willing to bet that he isn't going to
+insist on me cutting it, either," added Derr, glancing about him with a
+half-defiant air in which there was also the suggestion of a threat.
+
+Quickly the attention of the others was drawn to the speaker, who had
+unconsciously straightened to his full six feet, while the rich color in
+his cheeks, augmented by the ruddy glow of the firelight, deepened
+perceptibly, and quickly spread to his throat and neck, which were
+partly revealed in their robust outlines, where the heavy coat was
+thrown back to the warmth of the fire.
+
+"Any special reasons for not wantin' to cut down the pole of the New
+Pike gate?" asked one of the band, with a wink on the sly at his
+companions.
+
+"I have," answered Milt frankly and seriously. "One good reason I will
+state a little later, the other can be given right now. It seems a
+cowardly thing to do--the chopping down of a gate that's kept by two
+lone women. Now if it was a man, the case would be altogether
+different."
+
+"It ain't the women folks we've got the grudge ag'in," spoke up one of
+the men. "It's the graspin' turnpike companies back of 'em we're after."
+
+"Yes, but it's taking away the living of two worthy women," protested
+Derr.
+
+"That can't be helped, though," argued the other raider. "If we're goin'
+to do away with toll-gates, an' have free roads, we can't play
+favorites, you know, by cuttin' down some poles, an' leavin' others
+standin', just on account o' family relations," he said.
+
+"What's the talk?" The deep voice came from the outer gloom, and as the
+men glanced in its direction, the captain emerged from the shadows
+hovering close about the circle and joined the group.
+
+An embarrassing silence fell suddenly upon the company, at the leader's
+presence, and each man waited for his neighbor to make reply. As no one
+seemed inclined to answer, finally Derr spoke.
+
+"It was concerning the New Pike gate. Some one suggested that I would be
+chosen to do the cutting of the pole."
+
+"Well!" The captain fixed his steel cold eyes full on the speaker, while
+the semblance of a sarcastic smile hovered about his mouth.
+
+"I have good and sufficient reasons for not wanting to cut down that
+pole, and especially if I was called upon tonight," continued the
+speaker quietly, his eyes meeting the captain's gaze unflinchingly.
+
+"Have your reasons been called for?" demanded the leader with a
+contemptuous curl of the lip.
+
+"Among other reasons," continued Derr, ignoring the question, "I don't
+see the need of disturbing that gate for the present, when so many
+others around here tonight might claim our attention."
+
+The little groups merged into a large one, and general attention was
+quickly centered in the two men, for trouble seemed brewing in this
+quarter. As they stood face to face, eyeing each other keenly and
+coolly, the spirit of unfriendliness that had long held a place in each
+bosom was plainly evident, and a clashing of strong wills appeared
+imminent. There had ever been a feeling of rivalry, dating far back to
+the days they had gone to school together in Alder Creek Glen, and
+pretty little Sally Brown was the figurative apple of discord between
+the two.
+
+"His reasons for not wanting that gate disturbed may not be hard to
+guess," said the captain, a sneer lingering on his heavy lips. "He's in
+love with the pretty toll-taker."
+
+"And the captain's rather sore because she's jilted him," retorted Derr
+in clear, deliberate tones.
+
+The leader's face flushed crimson with anger at the words that carried
+with them the sting of truth, and a look of hatred blazed for an instant
+in his eyes as he turned them full on the speaker, standing calm and
+disdainful, meeting the look fearlessly.
+
+Perhaps this utter lack of fear deterred the captain from his first
+impulse, for he knew that to press his adversary further at this moment
+meant a speedy settlement of old scores. Jade Beddow was not ready for
+such a course just yet, indeed he knew a better plan of revenge, so
+with strong effort he managed to control the rage that filled him, and
+to bring himself to a more fitting realization of his present course of
+conduct.
+
+"We haven't met tonight to settle personal grievances," he said, letting
+his eyes slowly wander to the men surrounding him. "These can be left to
+another time an' place. Our business tonight is to strike another blow
+for our just cause, and the New Pike gate is the one to go down. Let
+those who are not cowards follow me. To your horses, boys!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+
+A little before eight o'clock, while the young girl was still busied in
+the kitchen with the supper dishes, for on court days this meal was
+always a late one, Squire Bixler again passed through the New Pike gate
+on his way to town.
+
+Sally's mother raised the gate for him, and curious to know the cause of
+his speedy return, straightway began to ply him with questions. When she
+came into the house after he had ridden on, the seal of secrecy being
+the price the Squire required of her for the information he had
+imparted, she heaved so deep a sigh, and looked so full of melancholy
+forebodings that her daughter quickly inquired the cause.
+
+"Nothin'," answered the old woman evasively, but the tone and her
+actions suggested quite the contrary. Indeed, her face bore the
+unmistakable impression of an impending disaster. The girl's curiosity
+was at once aroused and piqued by her mother's bearing and words.
+
+"But there is certainly something troubling you," insisted Sally. "You
+look quite put out."
+
+"Well," admitted the other grudgingly, "perhaps I am."
+
+"Then what's the matter?"
+
+"I'm under solemn promise not to tell anybody, not even you, but when a
+person don't know what minute they're liable to lose the very shelter
+over their heads, it's high time for dismal looks I should say."
+
+"Are we in any such danger?" asked the girl quickly.
+
+"I'm not sayin' as we air or ain't," yet the speaker gave a most gloomy
+shake of her head along with the noncommittal answer.
+
+"But you act like something serious was the matter."
+
+"I can't well help showin' what's on my mind, I suppose."
+
+"Then why on earth don't you say what's troubling you?"
+
+"When you're told a thing, an' then told positively not to tell it, how
+is a person to do?" asked Mrs. Brown in dire perplexity. Her pledge to
+the Squire was already beginning to weigh heavily upon her.
+
+"I don't see why you hesitate to tell me," said Sally emphatically; "I'm
+not a child that can't be trusted with a secret."
+
+"I don't see the harm myself in your knowin' it," acknowledged her
+mother, "and that, too, when you'd be sure to find it out in a mighty
+little while, for as soon as the guards come, you'd know that somethin'
+was wrong."
+
+"The guards?" echoed the girl. "Then it's something about the raiders?"
+
+"I didn't say," answered her mother with exasperating evasiveness.
+
+"But it is," cried the girl. "Surely I've quite as much right to know as
+you. Don't it concern me equally as much?"
+
+"Of course, but then the Squire didn't seem to want to make you uneasy
+any sooner than was necessary. That's why he cautioned me about tellin'
+you, I suppose."
+
+"And very thoughtful it was of him, too," declared the girl with
+shrewdly feigned graciousness. "So it was the squire that told you about
+the raiders?"
+
+"Yes, and it goes to prove how much he really thinks of you, not to want
+you worried."
+
+"That's true," the girl's manner took on a careless indifference, "He
+was speaking to me the other day about the raiders; what did he have to
+say to you?" she asked in an off-hand way that threw the mother quite
+off her guard for the moment.
+
+"He was sayin' that he feared you'd be badly frightened if you knew the
+raiders would be here tonight."
+
+"Tonight?" cried the girl excitedly, no longer acting a part.
+
+"There! I've gone and let the cat out of the bag, after all!" exclaimed
+Mrs. Brown in sudden contrition. "You partly guessed it, though. I
+didn't tell you out and out." She came a little closer to Sally, while
+her voice dropped to a tragic whisper. "Yes, the raiders air comin' this
+very night."
+
+"How does he know?"
+
+"He didn't tell me, but he's found out somehow."
+
+"What will become of us?" cried her hearer in genuine apprehension.
+
+"Dear knows!" answered her mother melting into tears at the thought of
+the impending raid. "We'll likely have the roof burned over our very
+heads, and tomorrow will find ourselves without a shelter."
+
+"Well, there, don't worry!" urged the girl, touched by her mother's
+evident distress of mind. "There's another shelter been offered us, if
+the worst comes to the worst."
+
+"Whose?" questioned Mrs. Brown quickly, for the moment forgetful of
+impending danger in the thirst for further knowledge of this generous
+offer. "Has the Squire offered us a home?" she questioned eagerly,
+eyeing her daughter askant.
+
+"Yes, he has," acknowledged the girl with a little show of hesitation;
+"not that I mean to accept it," she added to herself, with a pretended
+flare of courage that was far from real. "What does the Squire think the
+raiders will be apt to do?" she questioned, returning to the primary
+subject under discussion.
+
+"He don't intend they shall do us any harm if he can help it. He's gone
+to town now to get men to come an' guard the gate, an' he hopes to ketch
+the last one of them lawless raiders before mornin'," declared the
+elder toll-taker.
+
+"I hope not!" cried the girl impulsively as a sudden fear crossed her
+brain.
+
+"You hope not?" repeated Mrs. Brown in open-eyed wonder, turning on her
+daughter in quick wrath. "Is Milt Derr one of them night riders that you
+talk like that, Sally Brown?"
+
+"Of course not, mother, else they wouldn't be coming _here_," answered
+Sally with quick wit to repair the slip of her tongue. "I mean on
+account of the trouble it would bring to a lot of innocent people," she
+hastened to explain. "Of course these raiders have friends and kinfolks,
+likely some of 'em acquaintances of ours up in the hills. Besides, the
+raiders think they're mightily down-trodden and oppressed, for
+toll-rates _are_ high, there's no denying the fact."
+
+"Sally Brown! I'm downright ashamed of you, that I am!" cried her mother
+sharply. "The idea of you takin' up for them miserable law-breakers, an'
+them tryin' to burn the very roof over our heads, an' take the daily
+bread out of our mouths. You must have gone clean daft."
+
+"I didn't say I thought they were right," persisted Sally. "I said it
+likely seemed so to them."
+
+"An' you got no cause to say even that," insisted Mrs. Brown, "you,
+that's dependin' on a livin' by takin' of the toll. It's nothin' short
+of downright treason!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+
+The girl had been dreading just such news as her mother had revealed,
+yet since the conversation with the Squire the day Sally had so
+unwillingly ridden with him from town, she had been hourly expecting it.
+Now that the ill news had really come, her present uneasiness was not
+altogether on her mother's account, nor her own. It was probable that
+her sweetheart was now affiliated with the band of raiders, yet if this
+was true, it seemed a little strange that the New Pike gate was the one
+to be attacked.
+
+When Sally sat down to her sewing a little later, after her various
+household duties had been attended to for the evening, her thoughts were
+very far removed from her present work, and she was much more troubled
+and perplexed in spirit and mind than she cared to show.
+
+At the time she had heard the talk between the Squire and his unknown
+informant, it was evident that Milton Derr had not then joined the
+raiders, but from the trend of that conversation it seemed likely he
+would soon become a member of the band. He was evidently debating the
+feasibility of joining them. Had he done so, and was he now powerless to
+change or divert their plans?
+
+It was not alone the news that the gate would be attacked which was
+troubling the girl, but the further information her mother had given
+that the plans of the raiders were known, and the Squire was even then
+in town organizing a posse to resist the attack and capture the band.
+
+Supposing her sweetheart was now a member of it, and some subtle
+intuition was urging her to such belief, what would be the outcome of it
+all? This then was the trap the Squire was adroitly laying for his
+nephew. She had warned Milt of the danger, but had he heeded? The band
+was probably composed of men he knew well, and was doubtless gathered
+from the ready material to be found among the rugged hills wherein he
+dwelt.
+
+There had ever seemed to exist among these people a certain wild spirit
+of adventure and reckless daring, which one naturally imbibed along
+with the very air of these free remote hills, and the Squire's nephew
+was of that restive nature too easily attracted by anything savoring of
+excitement or danger, such as these lawless escapades might readily
+furnish.
+
+On recalling a talk she had held with her sweetheart the Sunday evening
+before, when they rode together from Alder Creek meeting-house, she felt
+that her very own words may have had some weight in influencing him to
+cast his fortunes with the raiders. Though she warned him of such a
+course, yet in almost the same breath she told him of the Squire's
+prediction that the New Pike gate would be wrecked, leaving her mother
+and herself homeless, but she wisely said nothing about the Squire's
+offer of marriage, deeming it prudent to remain silent on this point for
+the present, at least.
+
+She had appealed to the nephew to do what he could to prevent the
+destruction of the New Pike gate, and had meant to enlist his aid only
+so far as the exercising of his influence over any personal friends who
+might belong to the band of raiders.
+
+As things now stood, a great danger lay in the fact that the posse of
+men now being gathered together in town, would probably make speedy war
+on those who threatened destruction to the gate. There would doubtless
+be fighting, some might be killed, wounded or taken prisoners, and her
+sweetheart was as liable to be among the first as the latter, if he were
+a raider. What great relief it would be at this moment to know that he
+was not connected with those who had lately declared warfare on the
+toll-gates throughout the country!
+
+If she could but manage to see him, even for a brief moment, a simple
+word of warning might avert serious trouble. There was still left her a
+faint chance for such warning to be given, for Milton Derr had gone to
+town that morning, and she had not seen him return, though it might be
+that he had passed the gate on his homeward way, while she was busied
+with her household duties.
+
+She felt a growing eagerness to know if her mother had seen him pass,
+yet dared not ask. Finally she decided on a little subterfuge.
+
+"Dear me!" she cried, suddenly pausing in her work and glancing at her
+mother inquiringly, "I forgot to send Phrony that skirt pattern she
+asked me to hunt for her. Has every one passed living up that way?"
+
+"I s'pose they have," answered Mrs. Brown grumpily. "It's gettin' late,
+an' if the country folks ain't at home by now, they oughter be."
+
+The girl made a show of hunting up the pattern, then sat down with it
+and her sewing near the front door.
+
+Several belated travelers passed, some rather the worse for having
+imbibed too freely of the cup that cheers, but the one she wished to see
+was not among them. Along toward nine o'clock a small party of horsemen
+came galloping along the pike, loudly hallooing and firing their pistols
+as they came, and for a moment the girl thought the raiders were surely
+at hand.
+
+Then quickly realizing that the cavalcade was coming not from the
+direction of the hill country, but the town, and that the night was yet
+too young for raiders to be abroad, she understood that it was merely a
+drunken crowd on their homeward way, therefore she hurried out and
+raised the pole, then fled into the house and blew out the light, as the
+horsemen went dashing by, in a volley of shouts and oaths, like a
+miniature whirlwind.
+
+Just as the clock was striking nine, and when her mother had once more
+fallen asleep after her recent rude awakening, the girl's attentive ear
+caught the sound of a horse's familiar tread, and tiptoeing lightly out
+on the platform, she softly closed the door behind her and awaited the
+rider.
+
+She was not at fault in her surmise, for the horseman was the one she
+had hoped to see, and at her low summons he rode close up to the
+platform where she stood, all impatient to divulge her message.
+
+"I thought you'd never come, or else that you had already passed the
+gate without me seeing you!" cried Sally in an eager undertone when he
+drew rein.
+
+"I would certainly have started earlier if I'd known you were waiting,"
+answered the rider contritely.
+
+"Did you know we are expecting the raiders to pay us a visit tonight?"
+she asked hurriedly, coming at once to the point.
+
+"Pay this gate a visit?" queried Milt in genuine surprise that proved
+her words news to him.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Are you quite sure about that?" he asked thoughtfully, "How do you know
+it's to be this gate?"
+
+"The Squire came by on his way to town only a little while ago, and told
+mother. He's gone now to raise a posse of men to guard the gate."
+
+"Here's trickery," thought Milt. "I was led to believe it was to be some
+other gate for tonight's raid, or else I've got things badly mixed. The
+Squire said it was this gate?" he added aloud.
+
+"That's what he told mother. I didn't see him. You mustn't ever tell
+that I told you, never!" she insisted.
+
+"I never will," he declared fervently. "And how did the Squire know
+about it?" he added thoughtfully.
+
+"I don't know, likely from the man who is acting the spy for him."
+
+"I wonder who that man can be?"
+
+"I don't know, but the Squire's got somebody in his pay who is not only
+spying on the raiders but on you also. He's acting a double part."
+
+"And you say the gate is to be guarded tonight?"
+
+"Yes, the guards will be here soon."
+
+"Well, perhaps that may scare the raiders away," said the young man
+reassuringly. "I'm awful glad you told me about it."
+
+"I thought you ought to know," said Sally in a low tone, "for perhaps
+you have friends that might be interested in such news."
+
+"This gate shall never be molested as long as I can do anything to
+prevent it," said Milton Derr earnestly, bending sideways until his arm
+encircled the waist of the pretty toll-taker on the platform; "and if it
+ever is, you can understand that I am powerless to save it. Good night,
+sweetheart!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+
+The girl stole quietly into the toll-house after her lover had ridden
+away toward the misty hills. She found her mother still sleeping soundly
+in her chair, quite oblivious of surroundings, and little dreaming that
+the secret the Squire had urged her to keep so securely had reached a
+third pair of ears already in its swift journeyings.
+
+Catching up her sewing again, which she had quickly dropped on the floor
+in her eagerness to see the belated rider, Sally began to sew away
+industriously to make up for lost time, while her thoughts flew a good
+deal faster than her needle.
+
+Her surcharged mind was now happily relieved of a portion of its burden
+of fears. There was no longer any danger threatening her sweetheart, so
+far as the present intended raid was concerned, and possibly this itself
+would fail of fruition.
+
+Soon after ten o'clock the sheriff and a posse of armed men appeared.
+
+"You keep late hours, Miss Sally," he said when she and her mother came
+out to receive them. "I expected to find you both asleep."
+
+"Not when we are expecting company," the girl answered with a laugh that
+was somewhat forced; "that wouldn't be good manners, you know."
+
+"It's no use to go to bed," insisted Mrs. Brown. "I couldn't sleep a
+wink, not if my life depended on it, that I couldn't." Sally smiled
+faintly, thinking of the recent long nap her mother had taken, and of
+the warning that had been given, quite unknown to the sleeper, thanks to
+this period of oblivion.
+
+"I do hope none of you will get hurt!" cried the girl in deep concern.
+"It seems dreadful to think that perhaps before morning a very battle
+may be fought right around this quiet spot."
+
+"Don't be alarmed," the sheriff insisted. "I look for little trouble or
+bloodshed either."
+
+"No more do I," thought the pretty toll-taker, with a secret
+satisfaction she admirably concealed.
+
+"I expect to take the rascals so completely by surprise they will have a
+chance to make but little resistance," the officer continued
+reassuringly, for the girl's apparent fear appealed to him. "Perhaps we
+may be able to capture the whole band without loss of a single man."
+
+A feeling almost bordering on resignation had gradually supplanted the
+disturbed condition of Mrs. Brown's mind since her daughter's reassuring
+confession that the Squire had placed a shelter at their disposal, in
+case the raiders deprived them of the one they now had. She began to
+feel that the threatened calamity might, after all, take on the
+characteristics of a disguised blessing, since it would help to bring to
+a climax a state of affairs she had long striven, though unsuccessfully,
+to mold to her purpose, and that through the raiders the Squire might
+also manage to get him a wife, which, up to the present moment at least
+had proven a most elusive quantity.
+
+With the coming of the posse to guard the gate, Mrs. Brown's spirits
+took on almost a jubilant turn, for though the raiders might fail in
+their present venture, they would ultimately succeed in the destruction
+of the New Pike gate, and its doom would probably not be far distant,
+in spite of officers or guard, while the price of its downfall would be
+the speedy realization of the mother's fondest dreams concerning her
+daughter's future.
+
+"We might just as well lay down on the outside of the bed, dressed as we
+are," said Mrs. Brown, as she led the way into the house, after the men
+had been placed on guard. "It's no use stayin' up, though, of course, I
+don't expect to close my eyes the entire night, for nobody can tell what
+may take place before mornin'."
+
+"The raiders may not come, after all," ventured Sally, hoping to allay
+her mother's evident fears, "though, as you say, it's just as well to
+look presentable, in case we should be turned out of the house and home
+in the middle of the night." She gave a covert glance in the small
+looking glass on the tall dresser as she spoke.
+
+"There's at least one that will not be captured tonight, whether he is a
+raider, or whether he isn't, and the Squire may find that his traps are
+not as carefully set as he thinks," said the girl to herself as she
+blew out the light, and lay down.
+
+The incidents of the past few days came crowding confusedly through her
+brain as she lay thinking over the many entanglements that seemed
+tightening their meshes closer and closer about her.
+
+As the night grew on apace, a suggestive sound by her side proclaimed
+that her mother had fallen asleep, despite all predictions of a watchful
+vigil, and as the girl lay and listened to the droning monotone, it
+finally lulled her into forgetfulness and slumber.
+
+Darkness and silence hovered over the New Pike gate, and while its
+inmates slept on through threatened danger, others were yet awake and
+watchful along the opposite side of the road, their alert and crouching
+figures hidden in the gloom of the sheltering stone wall as the guard
+impatiently awaited the coming of the raiders.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+
+At the captain's arrogant words, flung at Derr in the wake of a scornful
+laugh, the riders began to move slowly in the direction of a near-by
+cedar thicket darkening the entrance to the quarry. At this spot the
+horses were hitched, guarded by a member of the band, who at the same
+time guarded the approach to the rendezvous.
+
+Milton Derr stood motionless, silent and defiant, with tightly
+compressed lips, and in his dark eyes a vengeful, half exultant light.
+
+Should he let them go unwarned? This was an easy and speedy way to even
+up with Jade Beddow for his insulting words, and his intended blow to
+Derr through the downfall of the New Pike gate.
+
+Silence on the part of his enemy would surely bring harm this night to
+the captain of the band, and also to the raiders themselves, yet many of
+these were Milt's friends, and must not be sacrificed to his own hot
+anger and hatred of one man. This were cowardly. It was his duty to
+speak out plainly for their sakes. Understanding this, he made a sudden
+move forward, and called out sharply:
+
+"Listen to what I have to say!"
+
+As the men looked back he raised his hand warningly. "The captain has
+given you _his_ reasons as to why I have so frankly spoken against
+raiding the New Pike gate tonight, now I will give you _mine_."
+
+He paused a moment and looked around on the waiting crowd.
+
+"It's because the plans of the night-riders have been found out, and a
+posse of men are now waiting at the gate to give a warm welcome to those
+who come."
+
+At his words a sudden confusion fell among his listeners, as when a bomb
+is exploded in the ranks. The men stood irresolute, alarmed, looking
+first at the captain, then toward the spokesman, whose tall dark figure
+loomed up against the background of gray rock dimly outlined by the
+expiring fire.
+
+The captain hesitated, uncertain what move to make; then he came back a
+few steps to where Derr stood.
+
+"How do you know this?" he asked sharply.
+
+"I know it," answered the other quietly, "and that's enough."
+
+"But how do you know it? Who told you?" The leader grew insistent.
+
+Derr compressed his lips and made no answer.
+
+The captain gazed at him steadfastly some moments, then turned abruptly
+toward his men.
+
+"You have heard what he says, boys, that our plans are found out, and
+the gate under guard. If this is true, there's a traitor in our midst,
+and this is his work."
+
+A deep silence followed these suggestive words. The men glanced
+furtively at one another, as if a sudden distrust had arisen,
+specter-like, among them. The band separated into little groups and fell
+to talking in low tones among themselves, with now and then a suspicious
+look shot in Milton Derr's direction, but he stood silent and impassive,
+a little apart from the others, seemingly oblivious of these glances, or
+of the words to which they gave rise.
+
+"This may be only a hatched up tale to scare us off," suggested the
+captain at last, looking inquiringly around him.
+
+"Remember I have given you all fair warning," Milt said quietly, looking
+beyond the leader to where the men stood in scattered groups.
+
+"Who is your authority for this report?" the captain once more asked.
+
+"I learned it, that is all you need to know."
+
+"When did you hear it?"
+
+"In time to warn you."
+
+The captain turned away with an impatient gesture and a muttered oath.
+"Perhaps it wouldn't be a hard matter to tell how the toll-gate people
+learned of it," he said with meaning emphasis in his tone.
+
+"There may be something in this, after all, so what's the use of running
+into danger when you can steer clear of it?" asked one of the raiders.
+"The New Pike gate will keep till another time."
+
+"But if there's a traitor in our midst, what other time is so safe for
+us?" the leader interrogated. "The only course before us is to strike
+now and as often as we can, guards or no guards. For my own part I
+don't believe the gate is guarded."
+
+A warm discussion arose among the men, and hot words were bandied to and
+fro. A few favored the postponement of the intended raid. Several, along
+with the captain, were inclined to discredit the story that the gate was
+under guard, and the majority advocated a bold assault, even in the face
+of danger, which served to lend a certain zest to the act.
+
+Through it all Milton Derr stood silent, and offered no advice.
+
+"Well! what shall we do, boys--go or not?" asked the leader impatiently.
+
+"Put it to a vote."
+
+"Agreed!" the leader answered. "All who favor making the raid, step to
+the right. How many of you? Twenty. A fine showing, my trusty lads!
+Cowards are in the minority tonight. If one goes, all should go. Only a
+traitor would hesitate. To your horses!"
+
+"Free roads! Down with the toll-gates!" The cry arose in a hoarse howl
+as the men moved quickly in the direction of their horses.
+
+Derr stood hesitating, abashed and vanquished. If he now refused to go
+along with the others it was but the signing of his own death warrant,
+and the invoking of swift punishment. He would be proclaimed a traitor,
+branded as one. Rather would he run the risk of getting killed by the
+officers of the law than thus incur the enmity of the band, and perhaps
+suffer the penalty of a traitor's deed.
+
+By his presence he might still be of some benefit to the inmates of the
+toll-house threatened, and possibly through the influence of friends
+among the raiders the building might be spared and only the pole cut
+down.
+
+If the captain persisted in venting his anger and spite on a couple of
+helpless and defenseless women, and was fully determined to burn the New
+Pike-gate, and make a repetition of the Cross Roads affair then--Milt's
+hand unconsciously grasped the handle of his pistol--the band might be
+speedily called upon to elect a new leader.
+
+Milt slowly followed the raiders down the hill and joined them at the
+thicket. At a word from the captain the cavalcade set out through the
+keen frosty air, the clang of many hoofs on the loose stones along the
+way echoing amid the silent hills, and breaking sharply into the quiet
+of the night. Now and then, a tiny trail of sparks flashed beneath the
+flying iron shoes like a nest of glow-worms scattered into the darkness.
+
+Around the base of frowning, tall, uprising hills the raiders swept in a
+swift gallop, now through gloomy rock-bound ways, past quiet
+farm-houses, by fallow fields, following the winding courses of the road
+that trailed under the dim starlight like a ribbon of mist between the
+silent, opaque hills.
+
+Still on and on the horsemen rode, sometimes dropping into a slower
+gait, then spurring their horses anew, with never a jest as they rode
+along, nor a fling of laughter or song to the darkness--a shadowy,
+silent band with suggestion of deep-set purpose in the ominous quiet
+they maintained. When at last they swung around the curve of the pike
+and came in sight of the New Pike gate, the captain drew rein and called
+a brief halt.
+
+"Go forward!" he commanded, selecting Derr for the mission.
+
+"Let me go! I'm not afraid!" hastily cried another member of the band,
+as Milton hesitated and seemed on the point of refusing. It was Steve
+Judson who spoke, and there was a touch of eagerness in his voice as he
+made the request.
+
+"I have chosen the one to go," said the leader sternly. "If the gate is
+guarded, as he seems to think is the case, he is on better terms with
+the toll-takers an' their protectors than any of us."
+
+"Aw, let me go!" persisted Steve. "That's always been my duty, an' I'm
+not afraid to shirk it now. Send me ahead!"
+
+"You stay here!" commanded the captain decisively. "I've got other work
+for you when the time comes."
+
+"Go forward!" the captain continued, addressing Milt. "If you find the
+coast clear, ride on beyond the gate, then signal us, an' guard the road
+from that point."
+
+"I have told you that I believe the gate to be guarded," answered Derr
+quietly. "I have warned you that it was to be. Do you command me to ride
+into almost certain danger?"
+
+"If you know it to be guarded, you stand in no danger from your
+friends," answered the leader coldly. "If we find you have betrayed us
+you will stand in very great danger from your enemies."
+
+"I have not betrayed you, I have only warned you," insisted Milt.
+
+"Then you should be willing to share the danger with us. A brave man
+never fears danger if his duty demands it. Go!"
+
+"I will go, then, since you command it. Remember, though, comrades," he
+added, turning to the members of the band who were nearest to him, "if I
+fail to get back, my blood be upon this man!"
+
+He turned and rode quickly through the darkness toward the New Pike
+gate.
+
+[Illustration: HE TURNED AND RODE THROUGH THE DARKNESS.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+
+On the Squire's return to town, zealously urged by his mission to warn
+the officers of the law of the intended attack on the New Pike gate, he
+felt that supreme elation of spirits belonging to a man who already
+scents splendid victory in the near future.
+
+Indeed, it promised to be a double one, for not only would he be enabled
+to strike an effective blow at the raiders, whose warfare on the
+toll-gates threatened him with a considerable financial loss, but he
+would also have it in his power to crush one whose ever-unwelcome
+presence in the neighborhood seemed likely to deprive the Squire of
+winning a wife.
+
+The wily old man reasoned with himself that he would much prefer to have
+his nephew alive and in the penitentiary than simply dead. Incarceration
+would prove a far more lasting and complete revenge than death. In death
+there would only come a quick oblivion to the Squire's victory, on the
+nephew's part, while in a long imprisonment, which to the victim would
+be a living death, there would yet remain a daily and hourly
+comprehension of unhappy facts, besetting the helpless prisoner like a
+pack of hungry wolves attacking their prey--an ever-present hideous
+knowledge of his own powerless condition, and his uncle's complete
+mastery of the situation.
+
+It was this wish, this growing hope to place his nephew in just such a
+living tomb, that fanned the hatred of the Squire into a glowing heat,
+and made him all the more determined that Milt should soon feel the
+blighting power of his wrath, even through walls of massive stone, and
+behind barred doors.
+
+All the way to town the old man fed his sluggish imagination by
+picturing his kinsman and rival thus imprisoned, slowly eating away his
+heart in rage and solitude, understanding full well that his sweetheart
+had become the wife of the man he most hated in all the world. Ah! what
+could be a greater punishment than this? Death would prove sweet
+compared to it.
+
+The Squire chuckled to himself in a sort of fiendish delight at the
+mental picture of anguish he had conjured up.
+
+In their last bitter quarrel, when the young man had been driven from
+the Squire's home, the nephew had boldly laughed in his uncle's face,
+taunting him with his age and decrepitude, and declaring that he would
+yet win the girl in spite of all that the old man might do.
+
+Youth and manly beauty are a powerful offset to wealth and age in the
+eyes of a young woman. The Squire understood this fully, and chafed
+under the knowledge, but he resolutely determined to see what craft and
+cunning could accomplish in the unequal struggle. He made up his mind to
+marry the pretty toll-taker, though there were a dozen importunate
+suitors in the way. He would ruthlessly trample them all underfoot, or
+sweep them aside, as he meant to do his nephew, showing neither pity nor
+mercy.
+
+Ofttimes perseverance is even more effective than love, and the Squire
+was not of the kind to be easily thwarted when he had once made up his
+mind to attain a desired result. Stubbornness and determination were his
+strongest characteristics. These two traits, cleverly united, have
+carried many a man to success.
+
+Deep down in his wicked old heart he had carefully considered the plan
+of having his nephew put quietly out of the way--the Squire knew a man
+that money could easily buy for this purpose--but the Squire disliked to
+part with money, and besides he did not care to place himself in a
+position to be bled by a hireling.
+
+For obvious reasons, therefore, it would serve his purpose much better
+if Milt got himself hopelessly entangled in the meshes of the law by his
+own acts, rather than the Squire should be accused of helping to bring
+about his nephew's ruin. There would be much less difficulty in winning
+the girl, the old man thought, ignorant of what she already knew.
+
+As matters now stood, everything was working beautifully to his
+interest, and with the exercise of a little diplomacy, such as he well
+knew how to employ when occasion demanded, his plans would soon be
+happily accomplished, and his nephew's downfall speedily brought about.
+
+When Squire Bixler got home again, after an interview with the sheriff,
+he replenished the fire, closed the shutters, and discarding his heavy
+boots for his carpet slippers, he gathered the papers about him, and sat
+down to read. Although his usual bedtime had passed, he only yawned
+occasionally, and consulted his heavy time-piece, or glanced at the tall
+clock in the corner.
+
+Along toward the midhour of the night he suddenly aroused himself from
+the stupor of sleep that was beginning to lay hold of him, and,
+straightening himself in his arm-chair, listened attentively.
+
+A sound which seemed at first elusive grew clearer to his alert ear,
+arousing his drowsy faculties to fuller consciousness. It was an easy
+matter to interpret that sound aright--indeed, his ear had done so
+quickly. It was a welcome sound for which he had been impatiently
+listening all these long, weary hours, and it signified the raiders were
+abroad.
+
+The old man sat motionless, listening intently. Clear and distinct, in
+measures musical as steel hammers on an anvil, came the rapid hoofbeat
+of horses along the pike, now louder where the open fields spread out
+on either side of the road, now dull and muffled when a hillock
+intervened.
+
+As the sound grew nearer the Squire hastily arose, and blowing out his
+candle went to the window and opened it. The body of horsemen were even
+then passing his avenue gate.
+
+Now the raiders were climbing the little hill that arose between his
+place and the toll-house, each fall of the iron shoes seemed a sharp,
+clear note, played in staccato time, on the hard, white surface of the
+pike, then the notes grew less distinct, softened and shaded as by a
+soft pedal, when the raiders descended the farther side of the hill.
+They must soon be at the very gate.
+
+The Squire listened. There came a pause in the hoof music, then a
+solitary horseman took up the refrain. The listener recalled to mind the
+request that his recent nocturnal visitor had made concerning this
+advance guard--that harm should not come to him--and a grim smile played
+over the old man's face as he silently hoped that this one, too, might
+fall. The Squire had urged upon the sheriff that no man should
+escape--not one.
+
+Suddenly a shot rang out--then another--two, three--a half-dozen.
+Quickly a volley poured forth, startling the night with clamorous
+echoes.
+
+The fight was on in fierce earnestness between the raiders and defenders
+of the gate.
+
+[Illustration: A rider.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+
+The distance that Milton Derr had to go to reach the New Pike gate, from
+where the raiders halted and held parley, was but a short one, measured
+by paces, yet during that brief ride many irrelevant things came
+crowding fast upon his memory--indeed, it seemed that his whole life's
+history was swiftly reviewed in that brief period.
+
+His boyhood days arose to his mind--those careless, happy days of early
+youth that were spent amid the wild, sweet freedom of the hills, from
+which he had just now ridden--the old schoolhouse in Alder Creek glen,
+that unforgotten spot where pretty Sally Brown had first ensnared his
+boyish heart and held it a willing captive ever since.
+
+He recalled to mind the sharp pangs of jealousy Jade Beddow took a
+delight in arousing in his youthful bosom by showing marked attention to
+the object of their mutual admiration--then of gloomier matters, his
+mother's illness and her death, which had wrung his heart with the
+bitterest grief that had ever crept into his young life. There came to
+mind a memory of the subsequent home with his uncle--a home that meant
+little else than a mere shelter, and an opportunity for much hard work,
+for the Squire was a grasping man, close and calculating, and required
+of every one the last atom of effort.
+
+Most clear in his memory was that eventful day when his uncle first
+learned that the smiles of the pretty toll-taker were rather for the
+nephew than for the uncle, and this discovery seemed suddenly to change
+the Squire's indifference toward his ward into an intense hatred, which
+smoldered for a while, then at last broke forth into a fierce flame of
+passion, when there was a bitter quarrel, and the young man was driven
+from his uncle's roof, and went back to live amid his native hills once
+more.
+
+When Milton Derr made up his mind to join the raiders, he was actuated
+by the two strongest passions that sway the human heart--love and hate.
+The first and uppermost one urged him to join the band in order that he
+might be able to influence the members to spare the New Pike gate, for
+the present, at least; the second made it evident that, by aiding in the
+general destruction of toll-houses throughout the county, and the
+abolishment of tolls, he would be in a position to do his kinsman much
+damage, and affect the most vulnerable spot in evidence--his pocket.
+Thus, in Derr's bosom, love and hate held almost equal sway.
+
+All these things passed in hurried view through the rider's excited
+mind, like a fleeting panorama, brief, yet clear and intense as the
+glimpse of a surrounding landscape seen by the flash of the lightning's
+path across the starless heavens.
+
+He once more recalled to mind the conversation that his sweetheart had
+overheard and repeated to him, which had taken place between his uncle
+and some unknown man upon the public highway. Could this mysterious
+person have been Jade Beddow, and had they arranged it between them to
+have him sent forward so that he might be shot, or taken prisoner? This
+was evidently the trap that had been so adroitly set, and into which he
+was now riding, though not without protest.
+
+Won to this belief, he still rode onward unflinchingly toward the
+toll-house now looming up before him like a ghostly warning, and dimly
+outlined against the cold gray midnight sky.
+
+Nature herself seemed steeped in profound slumber at this wan, late
+hour, and neither life nor movement was visible about the place. The
+solitary horseman appeared to be the only living object in all that
+cheerless, dimly-defined landscape. There was no sign of danger on any
+hand, no suspicious movement of a lurking enemy. The deep silence of
+night's midhour brooded over the quiet scene, and its peace fell heavily
+upon it like the mantle of darkness round about.
+
+The lone rider began to look about him with growing confidence. It was
+all so quiet, so still, so filled with the hush of midnight--surely the
+monition he had received that the gate would be guarded must have been
+built on mere rumor without the foundation of fact.
+
+When he came to the gate, he found the pole up, as it was wont to be at
+so late an hour of the night, and after pausing a brief moment, thinking
+tenderly of one within the darkened toll-house, he passed from under
+the raised pole, and rode a short distance along the road.
+
+Once again he paused, and looked back, and listened. No sight or sound
+betrayed the presence of guard or officer. It must be that the posse had
+failed to materialize, believing the rumor of an impending attack mere
+idle talk. With a feeling of relief the horseman raised a whistle to his
+lips and blew a sharp call as a signal that the raiders might advance.
+
+In quick response the clatter of many hoofs came beating down the road
+in rhythmic measure.
+
+Suddenly--breaking harshly into the musical ring of the hurrying
+hoof-beats--rang the discordant note of a shot from out the darkness,
+and quick upon it came another, while the advance rider, startled and
+surprised by its unexpectedness, heard the bullet singing keenly past
+his ear.
+
+An answering fire from the oncoming raiders, shooting at random, seeking
+an unseen and hidden foe, awoke the echoes, and speedily a volley of
+shots from both raiders and guards filled the quiet night with
+tumultuous sounds.
+
+For a brief space of time Derr sat motionless on his horse, making no
+effort to escape, stunned by the surprise of his attack, then realizing
+that a fight was really on, that the gate was under guard, and, despite
+his warnings, the band had gotten themselves into a jeopardous
+situation, while he, being a sworn member, must now stand or fall with
+it. He turned quickly about and dashed back to join his comrades.
+
+The first shot had been the premature discharge of a gun in the hands of
+a nervous guard, who had fired before the raiders had reached the spot
+where the men lay in waiting.
+
+This, coupled with the fact that the stone wall behind which the guards
+were concealed, was on a stretch of ground sloping from the road, caused
+the later volley of shots fired on the raiders to speed harmlessly
+overhead, while the raiders' answering fire was quite as futile.
+
+The latter had been quick to respond to their unseen assailants, and had
+pressed on, reassured by the first single shot, but when met by a
+determined volley, the captain gave orders for a hasty retreat, quickly
+realizing that the band had ridden recklessly into an ambush, and that
+the odds were greatly against his men.
+
+As the raiders turned, the advance rider dashed back to join them.
+Several bullets sang a keen note of danger as he galloped by, but he was
+unscathed.
+
+A little beyond the gate one of the riders fell, or was thrown from his
+horse, which seemed to stumble, then quickly regain his feet, and,
+riderless now, dashed along the road after the retreating band.
+
+As Milt came up, he suddenly checked his horse at the spot where the
+accident occurred, for the fallen man had risen to his feet, and was
+sorely in need of succor, since his horse had taken flight without him.
+
+As he stood in the road, a dark shadow on a light background, seemingly
+dazed and uncertain what to do, Derr pulled up alongside, and bracing
+himself in his stirrups, leaned forward and cried hurriedly, "Leap up
+behind me!"
+
+The man quickly obeyed, though clumsily, for his right arm appeared to
+be of little service to him, but with the mounted man's assistance he
+managed to climb up behind, and throw one arm around his deliverer, then
+both men bowed low over the saddle, yet not a moment too soon to avoid
+a parting volley fired at the two on the fleeing horse.
+
+"The rest rid off an' left me, but you risked your life to take me up,"
+muttered Steve Judson, as they galloped on through the night. "Milt
+Derr, I promise you I won't forget tonight."
+
+"That's all right; hang on!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+
+The lurking shadows along the stone wall suddenly grew into animated
+forms, and the silence was broken by excited speech. The raiders faded
+as quickly into the night as they had come, while the faint echoes of
+retreating hoofs betokened a rapid flight of the band toward the hill
+country.
+
+"Have we bagged any game?"
+
+The guards hastily scrambled over the rock fence after a parting volley
+had been sent after the last retreating horseman, who had tarried a
+brief while in his retreat, and each guard was eager to find an answer
+to the leader's question.
+
+"One man fell or dropped from his horse, I'll swear to that," the
+sheriff made reply, looking along the gloom of the road with expectant
+eyes. "We must surely have wounded one of them. It cannot have been a
+total loss of lead."
+
+"No, for I'm hit," a voice made the doleful assertion out of the
+darkness farther along the fence line.
+
+"Hello! Scott! Is that you? Are you much hurt?"
+
+"Shot in the shoulder."
+
+"Is that so?" asked the sheriff concernedly. "I'll look after your case
+at once. Anybody else hurt?"
+
+"I believe a bullet went through my hat and grazed my skull"--this a
+second voice tinged with grave anxiety.
+
+"If so, it probably flattened the bullet," was the unfeeling remark of a
+companion.
+
+The girl from the toll-house appeared just then on the platform--a
+sudden apparition, startled of face, and with a hand that shook
+perceptibly as she carried an old tin lantern.
+
+"Is anybody hurt?" she anxiously inquired.
+
+"A wound in the shoulder of one of our men; nothing serious, I hope,"
+and the sheriff came forward to reassure her.
+
+"And the raiders--what of them?" The girl's query was hastily made.
+
+"One fell from his horse, but we can find no trace of him. He seems to
+have escaped. Lend us your lantern," the sheriff added; "perhaps he
+crawled off into the weeds."
+
+"Here's a hat I found in the road!" The words came from an excited
+guard.
+
+"Fetch it to the light!" This from the sheriff.
+
+The guard obeyed. As the hat was held close to the light of the lantern,
+which the girl held obligingly over the rail, the men crowded around,
+eager to examine the one trophy of battle.
+
+"There's blood on it!" some voice exclaimed. "We must have wounded one
+of the rascals at least. Likely he's in hiding now, close by."
+
+"Lend us your lantern, Miss Sally."
+
+The sheriff reached out for it, but before his fingers closed over the
+handle, the girl's nervous hand suddenly relaxed its hold, and the
+lantern fell to the hard bed of the pike. The glass in the sides
+shivered as it struck, while the candle rolled out and was quickly
+extinguished in the white dust of the road. The girl became the picture
+of consternation.
+
+"Oh!" she cried, "just see what I have done!"
+
+"Perhaps it's the sight of blood. It makes some folks grow faint."
+
+The sheriff spoke consolingly, pitying the girl's embarrassment, and
+covertly regretting the accident.
+
+"I'm all upset!" acknowledged the pretty toll-taker frankly. She looked
+it, seemingly so innocent the while, one would scarcely have suspected
+the accident to have been hastily planned by woman's nimble wit, in
+order to gain yet more time before a further search could be made for
+the wounded man.
+
+When the hat was held up to the light, the girl recognized it almost
+instantly as one Milton Derr was in the habit of wearing. He had worn it
+that very day when he passed through the New Pike gate. Its recent
+discovery by the guard, and the fresh stains of blood upon it, now
+filled her with sudden terror and consternation.
+
+Was Milton Derr among the raiders? The hat was a silent witness to the
+fact. Had her lover been wounded? The blood stains gave conclusive
+evidence. Was it possible that Milt had ventured back with the raiders
+in the very face of the warning Sally had given him? Why had he risked
+so much? Ah! was it for her sake? She asked herself this with a sudden
+glow in her heart, set aflame by her lover's devotion, and a quick
+resolve was formed to aid him in his present strait.
+
+Many perplexing thoughts arose. Why had he not in turn warned the
+raiders as she had expected him to do? Perhaps he had done so, but
+without avail. Could they have ignored the warning, or have forced him
+to come back with them? Possibly he came of his own accord to be of
+whatever assistance he could in the face of danger that threatened the
+inmates of the toll-house. The girl was in a sea of grave perplexities
+and conflicting thoughts.
+
+The voice of the sheriff close at hand broke into her bewildered train
+of thought and recalled her abruptly to a sense of her surroundings.
+
+"Miss Sally! I have stepped on the piece of candle and broken it. Can
+you get me another?"
+
+"Yes, certainly; I'll go at once," she answered hurriedly, glad to
+escape into the toll-house, where her mother was busied hunting bandages
+with which to dress the arm of the wounded man.
+
+"It seemed as if I'd never be able to find another piece of candle,"
+said the girl in apology when she finally came out after quite a little
+search. "My wits have left me completely--I'm dazed."
+
+"Hadn't you better leave the hat with me?" she asked with affected
+indifference as the sheriff and his posse started off with the light to
+look for the wounded raider along the road.
+
+"I might as well do so;" then, as he was about to comply, the sheriff
+added on second thought, "no, I'll take it along to shield the candle
+from the wind, now that the lantern glass is broken."
+
+At the spot where the hat had been picked up the searchers found some
+dark splotches sprinkling the dust of the pike, as if blood had fallen
+there, but the owner of the lost hat was nowhere to be found. The men
+searched carefully some distance along the way, and closely examined the
+patches of dusty weeds in the fence corners, but without reward.
+
+"I am positive one of the raiders carried him off," insisted the guard.
+
+"But for Gregory getting excited and firing before the raiders had
+gotten in close range, we would certainly have killed or captured some
+of them, perhaps have bagged the whole band by closing in upon them from
+each end of the road. This comes of having green recruits," the sheriff
+added grimly.
+
+When the posse had gone with the lantern, Sally went once more into the
+house and began to assist her mother in caring for the wounded guard,
+but the girl's thoughts were far from being centered on the object of
+her present skill and care, and she listened momentarily and with
+growing anxiety for additional news concerning the owner of the lost
+hat.
+
+Could it be that it was not Milton's, after all? She felt almost
+positive that she had made no mistake in regard to its ownership, and
+she had suggested the leaving of the hat with her that she might give it
+a closer scrutiny and satisfy herself on this point.
+
+If the hat were really Milton Derr's, on the under lining, inside the
+band, was his name and hers, both done in red ink, along with an
+arrow-pierced heart, and the date on which the names had been
+written--September 10th.
+
+There had been a little picnic on this date. She and Milton, along with
+Sophronia and her beau, and a few others, had gone for an outing up in
+the hills. The usual rain that invariably and maliciously awaits such
+gatherings suddenly came up, and the party had taken shelter for a time
+in the old schoolhouse in Alder Creek glen--the very log building where
+Sally's first girlish fancy had been captured by Milt's dark eyes and
+ruddy face. Here, as a stripling, he had fought battles for his lady
+love, and Jade Beddow had sought in vain to supplant him in her
+affections.
+
+While the picnic party had waited for the rain to abate, Milt had
+usurped one of the children's desks, and written the two names on the
+inner lining of his hat-band, covertly showing the results of his skill
+to Sally.
+
+If these names should be discovered, and discovery was imminent, it
+would clearly fasten the ownership of the hat on Milton Derr, even if no
+one could identify it otherwise. She felt a growing eagerness to get
+possession of the hat, and tear out the tell-tale lining, yet she dared
+not betray her anxiety, lest it arouse suspicion and hasten the
+discovery she would gladly avert.
+
+In the midst of her uncertainties and fears she caught sound of Squire
+Bixler's voice outside the toll-house.
+
+He had hurriedly put on his shoes and great coat, and ridden over to the
+gate to learn the results of the fight between raiders and guards,
+prudently waiting, however, until the firing had ceased; and he had
+heard, with deep disappointment and regret, the retreating hoof-beats of
+horses galloping toward the hills. Despite the sound, he hoped that one
+raider at least had been left behind.
+
+The Squire's chagrin was poignant when he learned that not a single
+member of the band had been either killed or captured, and that the sole
+spoil of battle, on which he had so largely counted, was but a gray felt
+hat, streaked with blood, that had been picked up in the middle of the
+dusty road.
+
+"By heaven!" cried the Squire wrathfully, when this single trophy was
+shown him, "I'll find the owner of that hat and punish him, if it takes
+every detective in the state to help me to do it."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+
+The morning following the exciting experiences of the raiders' attack
+and repulse at the New Pike gate, soon after the clearing away of the
+breakfast dishes, Sally, on the alert, caught sight of Squire Bixler's
+buggy coming over the hill, the loose side-curtains idly flapping to and
+fro in the fresh morning breeze like the wings of some bird of ill-omen.
+Indeed, she felt, on seeing the vehicle, that its very appearance
+presaged evil, if not to her, at least to one very dear to her.
+
+Usually she let her mother open the gate to the Squire if his coming was
+noticed in time for an avoidance, but this morning she made it
+convenient to be out on the platform, sweeping away industriously, when
+he drove up.
+
+"Good morning, Miss Sally! I suppose you are quite glad to find yourself
+alive, and with the toll-house roof still over you."
+
+"Yes," she answered promptly, "glad and grateful, too!"
+
+"What brings you out so early this morning?" she asked, smiling
+pleasantly on the Squire as she raised the gate which had so fortunately
+escaped the raider's axe the night previous.
+
+"Business," answered he with emphasis, "important business. Before the
+day is over, I hope to have a warrant served on the owner of that hat
+which was picked up last night. If I can get only one of the rascals
+caught and safely jailed, it will not be such a difficult matter to
+ferret out the rest of the gang."
+
+"Have you discovered anything more?" asked Sally, trying to disguise the
+anxiety in her tones as she made the inquiry.
+
+"Nothing definite, although there's one man among the guards who thinks
+he can identify the hat. I'm taking it to town now to show to the
+merchant that probably sold it."
+
+The girl's heart sank within her at the words. It would be little short
+of a miracle if the tell-tale names were not found and the hat's
+ownership revealed.
+
+While the Squire was speaking, Mrs. Brown came out on the platform.
+
+"Let me see that hat," she said. "It's likely I may know the wearer
+myself. I was so busy last night attendin' to George Scott's arm that I
+didn't do more than glance at the hat."
+
+The squire handed out a package done up in a piece of newspaper, which
+Mrs. Brown opened, and taking the hat held it up at arm's length,
+perched on her outspread fingers, viewing it critically, her head
+slightly askew.
+
+"I've seen that hat before," she said thoughtfully; "now who was
+a-wearin' it?"
+
+"There's likely a hundred such hats in the county," interposed Sally
+quickly. "I've seen a dozen or more myself."
+
+"No, you don't see so many of these light gray felts," avowed her
+mother, bringing the hat nearer. "Mebbe it's got a cost mark, or the
+maker's name; that would tell a body more concernin' it."
+
+She turned the hat upside down and looked carefully at the lining.
+
+"Let me take it into the house and brush some of the dust off it,"
+interposed Sally hastily, fearing every moment that the hidden names
+would be revealed, under her mother's inquisitive scrutiny.
+
+"No! no! let it be, just as it is," said the Squire, perchance put on
+the alert by Sally's manner, and suspicious of her ill-concealed desire
+to get the hat in her possession.
+
+"Look here! what's this on the underside of the lining of this band?"
+asked Mrs. Brown, as she ran her fingers around the inside of the crown,
+and pulled down the lining. "It looks like writing, only it's red," she
+added, squinting her eyes after the manner of one whose vision has begun
+to fail.
+
+At that moment Sally felt as though she fairly hated her mother's prying
+nature.
+
+"What is it, Sally?" asked her mother; "your eyes are younger than
+mine."
+
+The girl, after a careless glance, but with a sickening sense of fear
+taking possession of her as she recognized the arrow-pierced heart and
+the two names written underneath, answered in as calm and collected
+voice as she could command, "It looks like streaks of blood."
+
+She partly averted her face as she spoke, for she felt that her mother
+or the Squire would read in her very eyes the secret she was striving to
+hide. There was no longer a doubt of the hat's ownership. It was
+Milton's Derr's beyond all questioning, and the discovery of his name
+and hers written therein was now but a matter of brief delay, as the
+Squire's next words seemed to indicate.
+
+"I'll have it closely examined when I get to town. It will not be a hard
+matter to locate its owner, I think."
+
+"Would you mind giving me a seat to town?" asked the girl suddenly,
+beset with a new resolve.
+
+"Certainly not." The Squire was plainly tickled. "I'll be only too glad
+of your company," he said, smiling genially.
+
+"What's goin' to happen?" asked Mrs. Brown wonderingly. It was a new
+mood for Sally.
+
+"I've just thought of something that I've got to do, and if the
+Squire'll take me along with him, it'll save me the trouble of saddling
+Joe. I'll be ready as soon as I get my cloak and hat," added she,
+disappearing in the house.
+
+"Humph!" exclaimed Mrs. Brown, looking first after her daughter, then at
+the Squire. "This looks a little as if Sally was comin' to her senses at
+last."
+
+"Just give her a little time, my dear madam, a little time," advised
+the Squire, smiling all over his fat, red face. "She'll come around all
+right by and by."
+
+When the Squire and Sally drove off, she seemed lost in thought, and
+only answered in monosyllables to her companion's gallant attempts to be
+agreeable.
+
+"What's the matter, Miss Sally?" he asked at last, piqued at her silence
+and indifference. "You act as if you might be in love," he added with a
+jocose look.
+
+"Perhaps I am," acknowledged Sally turning the full battery of her
+pretty eyes upon her companion, until his pulse quickened as it had not
+done in years. He made an effort to speak, but the words failed him, and
+he only edged a little closer to her. For a wonder, she did not attempt
+to draw farther away. Was she really coming to her senses, as her mother
+had predicted?
+
+"Do you remember the ride we took a few weeks ago, an' what you said to
+me?" she asked slowly, and with averted eyes.
+
+"My dear, I have thought of little else, I do assure you," answered the
+Squire promptly, suddenly finding speech, now that the dazzling battery
+was withdrawn.
+
+"Well, I have thought a good deal of it myself of late," admitted Sally
+thoughtfully. "You profess to think a lot of me, but I expect you would
+refuse me the least little favor I might ask of you."
+
+"Have you usually found me a hard-hearted old skinflint?" asked the
+Squire reproachfully.
+
+"I've never put your kindness to a very great test, as yet. I thought I
+would begin with asking a little favor. You wouldn't refuse me that now,
+would you?"
+
+The girl looked up smiling into the old man's face, and brought all the
+coquetry at her command into play.
+
+"What is the favor?" asked the Squire shrewdly. "I never like to make a
+promise till I know what I'm promising."
+
+"It's about the smallest possession you have, and the one least valuable
+to you."
+
+"Well, what is it?"
+
+"I want the hat that was picked up last night."
+
+"Hum--m--m!" said the Squire meditatively. "In what manner does that
+hat concern you?"
+
+"How it concerns me, does not concern _you_," retorted the girl
+promptly, with an arch glance.
+
+"I don't know about that. Whatever concerns you, concerns me deeply,
+ducky!"
+
+"Will you give me that hat?" persisted Sally.
+
+"You fear it will be recognized?" ventured the Squire, and the girl
+winced under the words. "Well, it will be, before I've done with it. Of
+course I know it's that rascally Milt's hat," added the Squire shrewdly
+following up the clue the girl's manner and request had given him.
+"Haven't I seen him wear it, time and again? He had it on Court day,"
+hazarded the speaker.
+
+He noted the quick start his companion gave, and the look of fear that
+overspread her face and crept into her eyes. A sudden thought occurred
+to him. He was now in a better position to strike a bargain than he soon
+would be again.
+
+"Now, suppose we put this matter on a strictly business footing," he
+said blandly. "You want the hat and I want a wife. A fair exchange is
+no robbery."
+
+"Don't say that!" exclaimed Sally, as though a sharp pain had suddenly
+entered her heart. "You are cruel!"
+
+"Not in the least!" retorted the Squire. "It's you that's cruel, my
+dear! You have it in your power to make me the happiest of men, and
+incidentally keep a friend of yours out of the penitentiary. The whole
+matter rests with you."
+
+The girl made no answer.
+
+"The case stands thus," he persisted. "If my nephew is a lawbreaker, he
+deserves punishment. As I am president of this road, and a large
+stockholder, too, and he's doing his utmost to injure and destroy my
+property, I fail to see why I should show him any sympathy or favor. If
+I do, it will be solely on your account, not his. It's up to you whether
+Milt goes free or is punished."
+
+"On just what conditions will you let him go free?" asked the girl
+quickly.
+
+"On your promise to marry me."
+
+"Oh, no!" she cried sharply, "not that!"
+
+"Just that," insisted the Squire.
+
+"And if I don't promise?" she asked in a low tone.
+
+"It puts him in a place where you can't marry _him_," answered her
+companion promptly.
+
+They drove on in silence until the edge of the town was reached.
+
+"Here we are in town," the Squire said. "Shall I drive you to the
+sheriff's office with me?"
+
+"Why are you going there?" asked his companion faintly.
+
+"To give up this hat and swear out a warrant for its owner."
+
+"Don't go!" pleaded Sally.
+
+"It all rests with you as to whether I go or not," replied the Squire,
+his bold, unpitying eyes bent full upon her. "Milt can either be a free
+man or a felon--which shall it be?"
+
+His eyes were fixed on hers in a concentrated gaze that seemed to
+fascinate her like the gaze of the wily serpent charms the ensnared
+bird. There was a confused buzzing in her head, a thousand small voices
+crying out, "Save Milt! Save Milt!" Her very power of will appeared to
+be ebbing away. She saw only those hard, unyielding eyes, she heard
+only those inner voices crying out in her lover's behalf.
+
+"I'll promise!" she faltered.
+
+"When?" asked the Squire.
+
+"I don't know, some of these days," she cried desperately, quite at her
+wits' end.
+
+"That's too indefinite," insisted her companion. "S'pose you marry me a
+week from to-day?"
+
+"Oh! no! no! not that soon! Give me a little more time," she pleaded.
+Something would surely come to her aid, if she gained time, she knew not
+what. A wild thought came into her head that perhaps she might yet run
+away with her lover. At all events, a delay would give him time to get
+away, whether she went or not.
+
+"Two weeks, then," said the Squire slowly, "no longer."
+
+"Well," she said faintly.
+
+"Then you'll agree to marry me?"
+
+"Yes," she answered recklessly.
+
+"Two weeks from to-day?" he insisted.
+
+"Yes," she answered again, her voice dropping almost to a whisper.
+
+"All right! A bargain's a bargain!" cried the Squire gleefully. "I'll
+drive to the sheriff's and tell him I lost the hat coming to town."
+
+"Give it to me!" asked the girl eagerly.
+
+"Oh, no, my dear, not yet!" he answered, with a grimace, thrusting the
+bundle into an inner pocket of his great-coat. "I'll just keep it next
+to my heart as a reminder of your promise. I'll give it to you the
+morning of our wedding--as a token of love and affection," added he with
+a chuckle of satisfaction.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+
+A larger number than usual of possible customers and evident idlers were
+gathered at Billy West's country store on the Tuesday morning following
+Court Day, discussing the latest news.
+
+The building was a small one-room frame, set in an angle made by the
+Willis Mill dirt lane and the New Pike, an ideal spot for an exchange of
+news, often bordering on gossip, and a convenient halfway resting place
+for those homeward bound, or else on their way to mill or town.
+
+The proprietor's small stock of merchandise consisted of a heterogeneous
+collection, well suited to the needs of the locality, and ranging in
+variety from knitting needles, for the industrious matron at her
+fireside in the long winter evenings, to plow-shares, which her sturdy
+spouse might grasp when the soil demanded tilling in the spring. The
+varied mixture of farming implements, groceries and clothing presented
+the appearance of having been deposited by some friendly passing
+whirlwind, for the owner was of far too sociable a nature to devote much
+time to "stock-keeping."
+
+When an article was wanted, it generally had to be hunted for, unless it
+chanced to fall under the immediate range of vision of salesman or
+customer, while the crowded shelves and counters presented a bewildering
+array of tinware, glassware, patent medicines, clocks, trimmed hats,
+churns, gaudy neckwear, cheap clothing, mock jewelry, hair-oils and
+colored perfumes put up in glass bottles of seductive shapes, along with
+sundry articles great and small necessary to the needs and adornment of
+the people of the surrounding country.
+
+It was not for lack of time that Billy allowed his stock to fall into
+this chaotic confusion, for he had much leisure on his hands, but, as I
+have before remarked, he was of a sociable nature, and usually spent his
+spare moments tilted back in a well-worn chair under a locust tree, if
+the weather was warm, indulging in neighborhood news, or else was
+engaged in an exhaustive argument with his circle of solons as to how
+the government should be properly run.
+
+If the season necessitated shelter, the usual coterie removed its
+sittings to the rear of the store, while during the rigorous winter
+months checker-playing afforded amusement, the board being of white
+pine, home-made, in alternate inked squares, and the checkers of black
+and white horn buttons supplied from the general stock.
+
+On the morning I have mentioned, the air was yet cool from a frosty
+night, but the sun shone brightly, giving promise of speedy warmth, as
+the day advanced, and the little company chose the sunlight, being
+sheltered from the breeze by the front of the building, which faced the
+east.
+
+Moses Hunn, an old stager, was descanting on the previous night's raid,
+having first borrowed a chew of long-green tobacco from his nearest
+neighbor. Moses was an inveterate chewer and had been relying on his
+friends for tobacco for the last twenty years.
+
+"Yes, sir, they say them night-riders fit like wild cats."
+
+"The guards didn't seem to be of much use," interposed Billy.
+
+"They were pretty good at stopping bullets," Moses averred. "George
+Scott was shot three times in the leg an' twice in the body, I heard,
+an' four bullets grazed Joe Waters' skull."
+
+"It must be bullet-proof," a voice insisted.
+
+"The news is they've shot one of the riders, too. Leastways, blood was
+found on the pike, an' also on a hat one of the raiders dropped."
+
+"Any of you wearin' new hats this mornin'?" asked Billy with an affected
+show of inspecting the head-gear of the crowd.
+
+"I noticed Mose limpin' as he come up," a voice declared.
+
+"Mose has been drawin' a pension for that same limp for a good many
+years past, so I don't think the guards can be charged with _that_,"
+affirmed the storekeeper.
+
+"Well, folks seem bent on havin' free roads," remarked the owner of the
+limp, as he sighted a knot-hole in a box near by, and, with the aim of a
+practiced chewer, adroitly sent a squirt of tobacco juice through it.
+
+"Yes, an' I'm mightily afraid folks'll have the worst of the bargain
+when they do get free roads," answered Billy, with a dubious shake of
+his head. "We won't have no such good roads as we've got now."
+
+"Free roads'll make dead agin you, Billy," insisted Mose. "I'm not
+blamin' you for not favorin' 'em, for when folks can go to town, an' it
+not costin' 'em a cent, of course they're goin' so you'll lose many a
+good nickle that now drops in your till."
+
+"How did the sheriff get wind of the raid?" asked Billy, changing an
+unpleasant subject.
+
+"There must be a traitor."
+
+"Lordy! I wouldn't care to be in his shoes if they ever find him."
+
+"They'll find him all right enough."
+
+"An' swing him, high as Haman."
+
+"Sure!"
+
+Along in the evening, soon after sundown, Billy West closed his store a
+full half-hour earlier than usual, and went to his boarding house, not a
+great distance away. A little later he might have been seen cantering
+down the pike on his chestnut filly, arrayed in his best suit, and
+wearing the reddest and most conspicuous necktie his stock afforded,
+while the oily smoothness of his locks, and the odor of cheap cologne
+that hung persistently about him, announced the fact that he was on
+pleasure bent. To one acquainted with the state of his affections, it
+was an easy matter to guess that old man Saunders' was his probable
+destination.
+
+This proved to be the case. Only the day before he had made an
+engagement with Sophronia to escort her to the New Pike gate, where she
+was to spend the night with her bosom friend, Sally, then go on to town
+the next day to do some shopping.
+
+"I scarcely knew whether to come for you or not, after what happened
+last night," said the cavalier apologetically, when he reached Mr.
+Saunders'.
+
+"I couldn't have blamed you, if you hadn't come," declared Sophronia
+frankly. "Is it safe to go?" she asked in sudden perplexity.
+
+"I don't think you'll be disturbed tonight, after the failure the riders
+made last night. There's an old sayin' that lightnin' seldom strikes
+twice in the same place."
+
+"But night-riders may," insisted Sophronia.
+
+"I doubt it. Even if they should come, they wouldn't want _you_. I
+really don't know of but one person that does," Billy added with an
+engagingly meaning look.
+
+"I could name half a dozen, at least," retorted Sophronia, with a
+coquettish toss of her head, as her cavalier assisted her to mount.
+
+Sally was most glad to see her visitors, for she earnestly hoped through
+Sophronia or her beau, at least, to learn something of Milton
+Derr--whether there were any rumors of his being hurt, or if either of
+them had seen him since yesterday. If not, it augered ill for the owner
+of the blood-stained hat which had been picked up in the road near the
+toll-house.
+
+Finally, when her mother had gone out of the room, Sally hurriedly asked
+concerning the young man, and on learning that he had not been seen, she
+added that she had an important message for him, and asked Billy to tell
+him so within the next day or two, if possible.
+
+That night in the privacy of her room, and under a promise of the
+deepest secrecy on Sophronia's part, Sally confided to her bosom friend
+the besetting fear that Milt had been wounded the night before.
+
+"Try and see him for me. If he's much hurt, let me know at once, but if
+he isn't, tell him to leave here as quickly as possible, that he is
+strongly suspected of being a raider, and to go away before any arrests
+are made. Tell him to go at once."
+
+"How did you find out about the night-riders coming?" asked Sophronia.
+
+"Through Squire Bixler. He's got a spy that's keeping him posted, and, I
+believe, this spy told him they would come last night."
+
+"How do you know there's a spy?" asked her friend thoughtfully.
+
+"I overheard him talking to the Squire one day when I was hid behind the
+stone wall that runs along the pike," and straightway the girl related
+the whole occurrence to her friend. "It's a hatched-up plot between the
+Squire and this man to get Milt into trouble," she added in conclusion.
+
+"Didn't you see who the other man was?" asked Sophronia, beginning to
+connect this fact with some other circumstances in her mind, as links
+are added to a chain.
+
+"No I was afraid to peep over the fence for fear they might see me."
+
+"Could it have been Jade Beddow?"
+
+"No, I would have known his voice. It wasn't him, I'm certain of that.
+There was something about the man's voice that held a familiar sound, as
+if I had heard it before, but I can't place it."
+
+"Do you think you would recognize it if you should hear it again?"
+
+"Yes, I'm sure I should."
+
+"Then I b'lieve I can run that spy to the ground," said Sophronia
+decisively. "I believe I know the man an' the place where he's buried
+the money he got for tellin' on the raiders."
+
+"You don't say!" cried Sally, in open-eyed wonder.
+
+"Yes," answered her friend impulsively. "You go back with me to-morrow
+noon, when I come from town, an' I'll take you to the very spot, an'
+show you the very man."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+
+Sally needed but little persuasion to consent to go home with her friend
+the next day, for in addition to Sophronia's promise to show her the
+supposed spy--the man who was in league with the Squire against his own
+nephew--she had also promised Sally to get word to Milton Derr to come
+to her house that night.
+
+In case the young man was wounded and could not come, a trusted
+messenger, either Billy West or Sophronia herself, would see that he
+received Sally's message of warning.
+
+Shortly after the two girls reached Mr. Saunders', they set out to pay a
+casual visit to Mrs. Judson's, ostensibly to learn how the rag carpet
+was progressing, but chiefly that Sally might see and hear the master of
+the place, and so decide if Steve Judson were really the man she had
+overheard plotting with the Squire.
+
+The edge of the ravine was reached, and Sally was taken to the clump of
+cedar bushes from behind which her friend had covertly watched the
+secret burial of the jar containing the money.
+
+"I wonder if the money's still there?" asked Sally in a low tone, as the
+tree was pointed out to her.
+
+"I reckon so," answered Sophronia. "We might go look, only there's a
+possible danger of his coming upon us in the act. Hush! listen!" she
+cautioned, almost in the same breath, warningly pressing her companion's
+arm. "I hear somebody comin' up the ravine, now. Don't move! I shouldn't
+be surprised if it wasn't Steve himself," she added in a whisper. "He's
+comin' to see if his Judas money is safe!"
+
+"Suppose he should spy us?" asked Sally in sudden trepidation.
+
+"But he can't, these bushes will hide us securely." "Yes, it's him," she
+continued softly, as she cautiously parted the thick foliage and peered
+through; "he's comin' up the ravine, an' he's got his arm in a sling,"
+she added a minute or two later as she withdrew her face from the
+opening and signalled Sally to take her place.
+
+Thus the two, alternating their keen watch, saw Steve reach the spot
+Sophronia had pointed out but the moment before, as the secret burial
+place of the treasure, and when he had reached it he immediately began
+to dig with one hand in the ground to unearth the glass jar.
+
+He was some little time in doing this, hampered as he was with one arm
+in a sling, but at last the job was happily accomplished, and holding
+the jar between his knees, as Sophronia remembered also to have done, he
+unscrewed the lid with his free hand, and was soon deeply engaged in
+counting over the bills.
+
+"Hello! Steve! what in the devil air you doin'?"
+
+So intent was Judson in his pleasant and unusual occupation, and so
+interested the two spectators behind the cedar bushes, that the presence
+of a fourth party was quite unknown and unsuspected by all until a voice
+broke abruptly and startlingly on the quiet of the spot.
+
+Steve gave a nervous start, as if he had received an electric shock,
+and almost dropped the roll of bills that was spread out on his knee,
+while the quick move he made overturned the jar at his feet, and sent it
+rolling down the declivity, until it broke with a sharp crash on the
+rocks in the dry bed of the stream below.
+
+Even the two girls came near betraying their presence by a cry of
+surprise at the unexpected intrusion. Close upon the words of the
+new-comer, and before Steve could gather up his money and hide it, the
+bushes on the opposite side of the ravine, right above Steve, were
+parted, and a man caught hold of a wild grape-vine hanging from a tree,
+jutting out over a ledge, and lightly swung himself down to within a few
+feet of where Steve sat. It was Jade Beddow.
+
+"I went to your house huntin' you, an' your wife said you was down in
+this direction somewheres. How's your arm gettin'?" the speaker suddenly
+caught sight of the bank bills on Steve's knee, and broke into a low
+whistle of astonishment.
+
+"Well,--great--Je--ru--sa--_lem_! where'd you git all that money?" he
+asked in frank surprise.
+
+"I--I--I've been savin' it up for a rainy day," stammered Steve,
+nervously clutching the bills in his one hand, and crushing them into
+his broad palm, as if to hide them from Jade's keen eyes.
+
+"How much 've you got there?" questioned his companion curiously.
+
+"I don't know," answered Steve, hurriedly. "Not much, though--I was just
+countin' it when you come."
+
+"It rather surprised you, didn't it?" asked Jade with a laugh.
+
+"I should think so," acknowledged Steve. "You must have slipped down
+here mighty quiet."
+
+"I did," admitted Jade. "I wanted to see what mischief you was up to. I
+didn't expect to catch you countin' money like some banker. What's this
+hole in the ground? Been buryin' it, you d--n miser?"
+
+"It's safer than riskin' it in a bank, where you don't know who's going'
+to steal it."
+
+"That's true," agreed Jade, stooping to pick up the scrap of paper which
+had been wrapped around the money, and had now dropped on the ground at
+Steve's side. It was the identical scrap that had given Sophronia a
+clue as to how this money had come into Steve's possession, and when
+Jade picked it up, she waited anxiously to see if he would also make a
+similar discovery.
+
+At first the intruder glanced at it carelessly and seemed about to
+crumple it up in his hand, then suddenly the whole expression of his
+face changed as his eyes fell on the printed matter. He read it hastily,
+and quickly turned on Steve in accusing anger.
+
+"You scoundrel!" he cried, shaking the scrap of paper in his companion's
+face. "You got this money by sellin' out. You've betrayed us!"
+
+"I haven't," Steve stoutly denied, although his face turned a sallow
+white as he spoke. "Who says I told on the band?"
+
+"The proof's right here," affirmed Jade, again shaking the scrap of
+paper violently in Steve's face. "Here's the reward offered for
+information concernin' the riders. You're the traitor, and you alone!"
+
+"I'm not!" persisted the accused, though his voice seemed less assertive
+than before, and held in its tone a quality of fear. "You've no right
+to say so. I picked up that scrap of paper on the side of the road the
+other day."
+
+"Yes, an' you also picked up the traitor's price along with it," sneered
+Jade Beddow. "I'll just save this for future use," he added, folding the
+paper and thrusting it in his pocket.
+
+"What use?" asked Steve nervously.
+
+"As evidence when you come to be tried for a spy," answered Jade calmly.
+"You haven't forgot this soon the penalty of betrayin' our band, have
+you?" he continued in a sterner voice, fixing his cold, piercing eyes
+full upon his companion.
+
+"I never done it," muttered Steve, letting his eyes drop before the
+close scrutiny of Jade's gaze. "You cain't prove it."
+
+A sudden thought came to the accuser as he stood looking at the culprit,
+who squirmed about uneasily under the penetrating eyes, and the tones
+that Jade next employed suggested rather an argument than a threat. His
+voice dropped into almost a persuasive key.
+
+"Now look here, Steve!" he said quietly, "I've caught you dead to
+rights, an' you cain't squirm our of it, so you needn't try. You sold
+yourself for this money, don't deny it. You haven't saved up fifty cents
+in the last ten years, you know it, yet here you sit with a handful of
+crisp new bank-notes, tellin' me you earned 'em honestly. Ha! ha! that's
+a good one! The devil himself would laugh at a joke like that."
+
+Jade Beddow folded his arms and looked down on the poor wretch at his
+feet, who gave no evidence of the humor of the situation.
+
+"Now see here, Steve! you're in a tight fix, sure an' certain, but if
+you'll do just as I tell you, I'll promise to get you out."
+
+"How?" asked Steve hoarsely, a growing sign of weakness manifest.
+
+"By fixin' the deed on somebody else."
+
+"Who?"
+
+"Milt Derr."
+
+Steve remained silent.
+
+"Fix it on him, an' it saves you. You'll have to lie a bit, but you're
+good at that."
+
+"I cain't put it on him--don't ask me!" cried Steve sharply. "He done me
+a good turn only the other night. I cain't lie on him now."
+
+Jade gave a sudden, short, harsh laugh. "Your conscience is gittin'
+mighty tender, all of a sudden," he said derisively.
+
+"He stopped an' took me up behind him, after the rest of you had rid
+off. But for him I'd be in jail, right now."
+
+"All right! you can do as you please about the matter," answered Jade
+coolly. "Only there's a much hotter plac'n the jail, they say, which you
+stand a mighty good chance of reachin', an' d--n quick, too. If you want
+to suffer a traitor's fate, you can do so, I'll see that you get your
+just desserts, an' quickly. I've showed you an easy way to escape. You
+can take it or leave it, just as you choose."
+
+He turned as if to go, while Steve caught at him, as a drowning man at a
+straw.
+
+"I'll testify ag'in him!" cried Steve despairingly.
+
+"Very well! That's a bargain. We're goin' to have a meetin' to-night, at
+the old stone quarry near the bridge. Be on hand without fail, an'
+remember, that it's _him_ or _you_," he added significantly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+
+The two girls clung closely to one another, after the manner of
+frightened womankind, striving vainly to abstract a grain of courage
+from a united fear--in the eyes of each a growing terror.
+
+"We must find Milt and give him warning!" gasped Sally faintly to her
+companion, at last gaining courage and voice as the two men went slowly
+down the ravine, their voices dropping lower and lower until they grew
+but a dull, unintelligible murmur to the attentive ears bent keenly to
+catch their meaning.
+
+"Yes," agreed Sophronia, "without delay. Is Steve Judson the man you
+overheard talking to the Squire?"
+
+"The very one. I recollected his voice the minute he begun to speak."
+
+"A pretty pair of villains they are,--him an' Jade, too!"
+
+Sally was already busied with her plans for her sweetheart's safety.
+"I'll try to beat 'em at their very own game," she said determinedly.
+"The first thing to be done is to see Milt."
+
+"Yes, we must find him at once," agreed her companion.
+
+"Let's go straight home, get our horses, and ride over to Mr. Pepper's
+where Milt works. We must see Milt himself, not trust to a message."
+
+"He can't be badly wounded, else they wouldn't expect to try him
+tonight," said Sally thoughtfully, hope springing anew in her breast.
+
+"Neither Jade, nor Steve talked like he was hurt at all. Perhaps he
+isn't."
+
+As the girls talked and planned, beset by many fears and uncertainties,
+they walked hurriedly across the fields, keeping pace with their nimble
+tongues, and when Mr. Saunders' house was reached, they quickly saddled
+the horses, and set out forthwith on their quest.
+
+Disappointment awaited them at their journey's end, for when they came
+to Mr. Pepper's place, they learned that Milt had gone across country to
+attend to some business for his employer, and it was uncertain at what
+hour he would return. Sophronia and Sally looked at one another in dire
+perplexity.
+
+"Want to leave a message?" asked Mr. Pepper.
+
+"If Mr. Derr comes any hour before midnight, tell him to ride over to my
+house," said Sophronia. "I have a very important message for him." They
+turned away. "He evidently isn't wounded, an' likely he won't get back
+in time to be summoned by the raiders," she added hopefully, as she and
+her companion rode homeward. "Now, what's to be done in the meantime?"
+
+"I'm goin' straight home," declared Sally, "an' keep a sharp look-out at
+the gate. Mr. Pepper said Milt might come back by way of town. I can
+trump up some excuse to mother about not staying all night with you, as
+I intended. If Milt comes back to Mr. Pepper's you'll get to see an'
+warn him, an' if he comes by the gate--I'll get to do it. That's all we
+can do."
+
+"Suppose we both fail?"
+
+"Then I'll go to the old quarry tonight," answered Sally.
+
+"No!" cried her companion aghast.
+
+"Indeed, I will," insisted Sally, coolly, "I'll not only go, but I'll
+see that Milt's not convicted on the false words of those two lying
+villains."
+
+"You're really not in earnest, Sally Brown!" cried Sophronia, half in
+astonishment, half in admiration at the daring announcement.
+
+"But I am, I mean every word of it." The girl had inherited from her
+forbears a touch of that intrepid spirit that prevailed amid the hills.
+
+"I wouldn't go for worlds!" cried Sophronia shuddering.
+
+"I guess you would, if it was _your_ sweetheart that was in danger."
+
+"I don't believe I could go, even then," admitted Sophronia. "They'll
+kill you!" she declared in growing terror.
+
+"Not when I tell them I sent a warning to the band by Milt, and point
+out the very man that did betray them."
+
+"But remember, the leader of the night-raiders is Jade Beddow. He will
+surely do you an' Milt all the injury he can. Oh, Sally, don't think
+of running such a risk! Let's find Billy West an' ask him to go."
+
+[Illustration: "YOU'RE REALLY NOT IN EARNEST, SALLY BROWN!"]
+
+"It wouldn't be as safe as for me to go," demurred Sally. "I'm not
+afraid. They're not goin' to hurt me. Let me have your father's pistol
+when we get back. I'll take it along, an' use it, too, if there's need."
+
+As the two girls excitedly discussed the situation, Sally decided that
+she would not go back home as she had first intended. There were too
+many chances of missing her sweetheart by so doing. Besides, if the two
+girls separated, Sally would not know whether her friend had seen Milt
+or not. This was a point they had both overlooked.
+
+It was agreed, then, that the safer plan would be for Sally to remain at
+Mr. Saunders' until late bedtime, then, if Milt had not come, she would
+manage, with Sophronia's help, to slip quietly out of the house, saddle
+Joe and go direct to the old abandoned quarry where the farce of a trial
+would be held.
+
+When bedtime came, and no sign of Derr, the two girls succeeded in
+slipping out of the house without detection, when they quickly saddled
+the patient Joe, and later parted in the darkness, Sophronia still
+urging her companion to think once again before starting forth on so
+perilous a journey.
+
+Unshaken by her friend's forebodings, the toll-taker set out
+courageously into the lonely night, bent on accomplishing her
+sweetheart's release. She was familiar with the location of the dirt
+lane, at which she must turn off in order to reach the quarry, yet, in
+the haste of her mission and the perturbation of mind under which she
+was laboring, she turned into the wrong lane, and had gone some distance
+before discovering her mistake. By the time she had retraced her way
+many valuable moments were lost.
+
+The night was wearing on. In the hilly and sparsely settled region
+through which she rode, it seemed already past midnight, and her road
+was solitary and forbidding. Even the rocks, and trees and clumps of
+bushes along the way took on grotesque and often threatening shapes to
+her excited imagination as she passed them in the semi-darkness.
+
+At times, these dimly defined forms became terrifying monsters of the
+night, guarding the road along which she passed, like fabulous
+creatures of fairy-land protecting the approach to some magic domain.
+Vague, silent, mysterious, they loomed up on either hand--gigantic,
+somber sentinels.
+
+The chill of the night air, which lay heavily in the shadowy ravines,
+between the uplifting hills, penetrated her clothing and seemed to reach
+with its benumbing breath her very heart, yet she pressed on, undaunted.
+
+She paused a brief moment at a small brook that crossed the road on the
+way to the quarry, and as she listened there came the dull hoof-tread of
+approaching horses--a cavalcade, it seemed, as she hearkened in sudden
+nervous terror, for the raiders were evidently close at hand.
+
+Were they coming from, or going to the quarry?
+
+For the moment she could not decide whether the sound was behind or in
+front of her. The reverberant hills seemed to be playing pranks with the
+echoes, and as she sat motionless on her horse and listened, a feeling
+of faintness came over her at the possibility of the sound's direction.
+
+What if she were too late, and the raiders, returning from the old
+quarry, had already wreaked their vengeance on the hapless victim? The
+thought appalled her in its cruel suggestion, and her heart grew heavy
+with forebodings; then close upon her terror and despair the glad fact
+rushed to her relief that the horsemen were behind, not in front of her,
+and there was yet time in which to state her lover's case.
+
+The raiders' rendezvous lay beyond, some little distance up the road, as
+she remembered its location in bygone days. There was scarcely time to
+reach it before the hurrying horses. Perhaps it would be the better plan
+to conceal herself somewhere amid the shadows along the road until the
+cavalcade had passed, then quickly follow.
+
+She recalled to mind that a little further down the brook was a thicket
+of water willows, now a splotch of blackness in the vague landscape,
+and, after a moment's hesitation, she turned her horse's head in this
+direction.
+
+Scarcely had the obscurity of the spot enfolded her, when the raiders
+came sweeping by--an ominous shadowy band, crossing the shallow stream
+at the place she had but recently quitted, then galloping rapidly along
+the road which rose sharply toward the hill where lay the place of
+meeting.
+
+The quarry was hollowed out of the far side of the hill, around whose
+base the stream wound lazily, and to go by way of the winding road was a
+more circuitous route, while to climb the hill shortened the distance
+greatly.
+
+The girl decided on this latter route--she would climb the hill on foot.
+It would take less time, and time was now most precious. Possibly the
+raiders would place a sentry at the entrance of the quarry, so that she
+might not be able to gain access, even if she should go around by the
+road as she had at first intended.
+
+Acting on this sudden decision, she quietly slipped from the saddle to
+the ground, hurriedly tied the bridle to a bending willow, and, after
+giving Joe a friendly, reassuring pat, started to climb the hill.
+
+The way was rough and unfamiliar, and in the darkness, made yet more
+dense by clumps of cedar trees and bushes that thickly clothed the
+hillside, she was often compelled to grope her way along to keep from
+stumbling over the knotted roots of the trees that crept out from
+between crevices in the rocks, twisting over the ground like monster,
+hideous serpents, guarding the approach to the rendezvous.
+
+The ascent was slow and tedious. Finally the summit was reached, and
+choosing her bearings from its commanding height, she began to descend
+the opposite side toward the quarry, the long accumulation of fallen
+cedar spines deadening the sound of her light footstep until she was
+able to reach the very edge of the excavated portion of the hill without
+detection, guided thither by a dim light below the surface that faintly
+defined its rugged outline.
+
+Spent of breath, she crouched down in the shadows behind a clump of
+dwarfed cedar bushes fringing the ragged edge of broken rock, and peered
+cautiously into the quarry.
+
+A scant fire had been hastily kindled close against the rocky wall, and
+in a semi-circle around it the raiders were now gathered. The
+wide-brimmed, slouch hats they wore partly concealed the faces beneath,
+and the girl's eager eyes traveled anxiously from one dark form to
+another.
+
+Finally they rested on the object sought. Standing almost beneath the
+spot where she crouched in hiding was the accused, his head boldly
+erect, his bearing defiant, as if he feared no man, and cared naught for
+the two who had come to bear false witness against him, and to swear
+away his life.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+
+The raiders were gathered in a small alcove of the quarry, sheltered on
+three sides by walls of rough-faced limestone, jagged and broken as the
+quarrymen had left them years before, and this secluded spot made a
+counsel chamber little liable to intrusion, and well-suited to its
+present use.
+
+Milton Derr was standing nearest the fire in an angle made by the walls,
+while others of the band were ranged in a semi-circle across the wider
+space opening into the larger part of the quarry, the captain standing
+at the end of the line furthest from the prisoner.
+
+Above them the girl crouched in hiding, screened by the overhanging
+darkness and the fringe of cedar bushes along the edge, yet from her
+vantage ground she could clearly see what was taking place below, and
+easily overhear all that was said.
+
+Steve Judson was called to testify. She heard him coolly bear witness
+to having seen the accused stop at the New Pike Gate, and hold earnest
+converse with "that Brown gal" as he designated Sally. Steve claimed to
+have come up in the darkness and recognized the two at the gate as he
+passed through.
+
+He wove quite a plausible story out of whole cloth, saying that on
+recognizing Milt, and knowing his fondness for the girl at the
+toll-house, he, Steve, at once suspected that the plans of the raiders
+for that night were being discussed.
+
+To satisfy himself on this point, after riding along the road a little
+distance, he dismounted, climbed the stone wall and crept back quietly,
+keeping in the shadow of it, until he was near enough to hear a part of
+the conversation that took place at the gate, and then he overheard the
+prisoner tell of the raid that was to be made a few hours later.
+
+At the conclusion of Steve's story, the captain called attention to the
+fact that on this same night, before the hour of attack, Milton Derr had
+been boasting among his comrades at the place of rendezvous that the
+pole of the New Pike Gate would not be cut down on that night. He,
+alone of all the raiders, seemed to know that the plans for an attack
+were known, and the gate would be under guard. Twice had the captain
+asked, in the presence of the members of the band, to be given the name
+of Milt's informant, and twice had Milt refused to answer.
+
+More than once during Steve's false testimony the listening girl, with
+eyes blazing forth something of the fierce indignation she felt,
+nervously sought the pistol at her belt, in a stern resolve to use it on
+the accomplished liar, who was thus deliberately swearing her lover's
+life away.
+
+She remembered, however, that this man was but the frightened tool of
+another. At heart, the witness did not wish to do Milt an injury. Steve
+had admitted as much that afternoon in the ravine, while talking to the
+captain. Jade Beddow was really the one who was at the bottom of this
+piece of villainy. His hatred of Milt, coupled with a desire to be
+revenged on the girl who had scorned him, was prompting Jade to this
+present step.
+
+"This fellow is a liar and an ingrate!" cried Milt fearlessly at the
+conclusion of Steve's testimony. "The story just told is false in every
+particular."
+
+"Yet the man who declares these charges false is the only one amongst us
+who knew that the gate would be guarded," said the captain, turning to
+his men.
+
+"I gave you all warning of the fact," answered Milt.
+
+"The warning was likely given more to shield yourself than us," retorted
+the leader with a sneer. "If you went, you would be as liable to injury
+as the rest of us; if you prevented us from goin' it would serve your
+purpose; if you sneaked out of the affair, it would fasten the guilt of
+a traitor on you. This is the sum an' substance of it all."
+
+The captain turned once more to his men. "If it was known that the gate
+was to be attacked on this night, it is proof we have a traitor in our
+midst. If this man is the only one who knew the gate would be guarded,
+it stands to reason he is the only one who told it was to be attacked.
+Who else but the prisoner had an interest in protecting the New Pike
+Gate? The case is as plain as day."
+
+"I was told under a pledge of secrecy the gate would be guarded. I gave
+you the benefit of that warning!" protested Derr.
+
+"If there had been no traitor there would be no need of any warning,"
+answered the captain, then his words took on a greater force of
+meaning--
+
+"Brothers! comrades! there is a traitor in our midst. The repulse we met
+with the other night proves beyond a doubt that our most secret plans
+are made known to our enemies. Who, then, is this traitor? Cain't you
+pick him out? I know of only one person among us who would like to see
+the New Pike Gate still stand after all others had gone down. I think
+you also know who this man is, for the testimony just now given has made
+it clear.
+
+"No one but Milt Derr seemed to know the gate would be guarded the other
+night, no one but the girl at the gate knew it was to be attacked. It
+was to the interest of each that the other should know the plans of
+raider and officer,--a touching and mutual exchange of confidence," the
+speaker suggested sneeringly.
+
+"If the prisoner was warned, as he says he was, who but the girl at the
+gate could have warned him? If this was the case, how did she know the
+gate was to be raided unless told by her sweetheart? Who else but the
+man in love with the toll-taker would run the risk of betraying his
+comrades, knowing full well the penalty of the act?"
+
+Then the captain broke into a fierce tirade as he shook his hand
+menacingly at the prisoner. Jade possessed a certain rude power of
+oratory that could at times be made strongly effective on his
+followers--the peculiar magnetism of a fierce, headstrong nature that
+over-powered and controlled weaker ones.
+
+"There stands the traitor before you! Your liberty and lives are
+threatened by a constant danger so long as it lies in this man's power
+to betray you. He has already used that power--he will use it again if
+he can. As you each and every one know, there never was, and never can
+be but one sort of a safe traitor, an' that is--_a dead one_. It is your
+liberty, or his--which shall it be? The hour to decide is at hand. There
+is no time for delay. Choose!"
+
+When the captain had ceased speaking, a deep silence fell upon the group
+of waiting men, and so deep did it seem in the stillness of the night
+and the great loneliness of the spot, that the listener, crouched in
+the shadows above, was almost won to the belief that the loud beatings
+of her heart, or her stifled breathing, would be heard by those gathered
+below, and her hiding-place revealed.
+
+The captain waited expectantly, looking closely from one face to
+another, noting keenly and exultantly the dawning of distrust and fear
+that slowly overspread each countenance, as troubled waters communicate
+their motion until the whole silent pool is disturbed; then he spoke
+again, slowly, deliberately:
+
+"The case is in your hands, comrades! We have a common interest in the
+protection of our liberty an' ourselves. Shall it be freedom for him, or
+imprisonment for us? What shall be done?"
+
+"Draw for the red bean!" a voice called out sharply and discordantly. It
+was Steve Judson who spoke.
+
+"Yes! yes! the red bean!" a chorus of voices clamored, quickly seizing
+the suggestion as a solution of the problem confronting them. A look of
+approval came to the captain's face, while his eyes flashed forth a
+malignant triumph.
+
+"You shall draw for it," he answers briefly, taking from his pocket a
+small leathern pouch, which he shook vigorously, then untied and opened.
+
+"Draw!" he commanded, holding out the pouch to the man nearest him. The
+raider hesitated a moment, then put his thumb and forefinger into the
+pouch and drew forth a bean, which he concealed within the palm of his
+hand without a glance at it.
+
+Stepping aside, the first man gave way to another member of the band,
+and thus in succession the drawing continued until each raider, save the
+prisoner, had drawn from out the leathern pouch a bean, and held it
+within the hollow of his hand, while neither he nor his neighbor knew
+whether it was a bean of white, or the fatal one of red that had been
+drawn.
+
+Steve was the last to draw. As he stepped forward, no one saw the
+captain slightly relax the fingers of the hand holding the pouch, nor
+suspected that the small object they had retained until this moment was
+covertly released and dropped to the bottom of the pouch as it was held
+out to Steve.
+
+"Hands up! your oath!"
+
+Each man obeyed, the last man to draw holding his left hand aloft as his
+right was in a sling. Thus, with hand upraised, every man swore to a
+strict performance of his duty, taking upon himself the oath that if he
+held the red bean he would visit upon the traitor wherever found,
+whoever he might be, the punishment that a traitor's act justly merited,
+or that having failed in his oath, the same judgment he had withheld
+might be visited on himself who had foresworn his oath.
+
+Then each man came singly before the captain, and opened the palm of the
+hand that both might know who held the fatal red bean.
+
+The fire had been replenished and stirred into renewed brightness while
+the drawing was taking place, and as Steve came forward and opened his
+palm, a bright flame suddenly shot up from the fire, a slender, wavering
+torch, shedding a momentary light on the group, and on the two standing
+together.
+
+As the captain and Steve looked downward into the latter's outstretched
+palm, each saw a round, red object lying there like a great drop of
+blood.
+
+[Illustration: A TYPICAL NIGHT RIDER.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+
+All this while the girl crouched close to earth, immovable, breathless,
+keenly alert amid the gruesome shadows hovering along the broken line of
+rock. There was a strange and terrible fascination in the scene enacted
+below her--a fascination she would fain shake off, yet felt powerless to
+overcome, like the fatal spell a serpent weaves when it charms a victim.
+
+To her perturbed brain it seemed an oppressive dream, an unhappy
+nightmare, born of the surrounding gloom, and still she understood that
+it was most real, that the little drama, with its environment of night
+and secrecy and threatened crime, was one of momentous import to her and
+to her lover.
+
+Was it now time for her to act, to take her part in it, or must she wait
+a little longer for her cue? Should she reveal her presence and appeal
+to the members of this lawless band, denouncing its unscrupulous
+leader, and his traitorous ally? Would the raiders believe her story,
+and listen to a petition for her sweetheart's liberty, after having
+heard Steve Judson's strong testimony, strengthened by the captain's
+philippic?
+
+True, she might conduct them to the very spot wherein the real traitor
+had concealed his ill-gotten gains, and where she had overheard him
+plotting with the captain against the prisoner, but the money was no
+longer there, and with Steve and the captain both against her, she could
+hope to accomplish little. Neither would hesitate to go to any length to
+prove her statements false; besides, there was no time to prove words
+true--it was a moment for action, not for words. Whatever was done must
+be done this very night--at once.
+
+On one point her mind was fully set--harm should not befall the innocent
+victim of this foul conspiracy, while she could raise a voice or hand to
+prevent it. A plan of succor must be speedily decided upon. Persuasion
+seemed the only feasible one in her present strait. Might she not state
+the whole case calmly and dispassionately to them? Surely they would
+not be deaf to reason or entreaty. When they were brought to realize the
+fact that it was through her the band had been warned of the gate being
+under guard the night of the attack, their gratitude alone should insure
+her both justice and mercy for the one whose cause she pleaded.
+
+Among these lawless men there were two who stood in the way of Milt's
+liberty, the others were negative save as their own personal safety was
+concerned, and of these two active enemies, the captain was by far the
+most dangerous. With his evil influence removed, Steve would no longer
+be an enemy to the prisoner. Yet how could that influence be taken away
+in time to be of benefit to Milt? A sudden thought came to the girl that
+startled and terrified her with its meaning.
+
+There was a solution to the problem. The means for removing this baneful
+influence was close at hand--within her very grasp. But could she do
+this deed? Had she the courage to attempt it? She resolutely nerved
+herself to the effort.
+
+Slowly drawing the pistol from her belt, and noiselessly sinking on one
+knee, that she might the better rest her arm and take a more accurate
+aim, the girl carefully sighted the captain's dark form, while her
+finger trembled nervously on the hammer of the weapon.
+
+Just a slight pressure--the mere movement of a finger--and a soul would
+be sent quickly into eternity. Yet what an evil soul it was and to what
+lasting punishment! As she thought of it, in all its terrible import,
+her own soul turned faint, and her fingers grew limp and purposeless.
+Oh! it was a fearful thing to do, to shoot one down like a wild beast,
+and far worse to hurry one so deeply charged with wickedness into
+eternity, without a moment's time in which to cry out for forgiveness
+for his evil life.
+
+Were she to commit this deed, would not its terror abide with her for
+all time--a hideous ever-present spectre, that would follow her through
+life? She recalled to mind a sermon she had once heard in Alder Creek
+glen, in which had been pictured in powerful intensity the wrong of
+taking human life, and the murderer's unrest and troubled conscience
+forever after. Must she be a taker of human life?
+
+Then would her own soul be stained with crime, her own hand prove the
+fatal instrument for sending a lost soul to a judgment in which there
+could be no hope, from which there was no appeal. The word of God
+himself was against such an act, for in letters of flame the sentence
+seemed to flash into her brain--"Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord, I
+will repay."
+
+No! no! she must not blot her soul with this awful act, there was surely
+some other means to employ, some method less dreadful by which she could
+save the one in peril. She would wait a little longer, hoping without
+hope as it were.
+
+Her arm rested idly on her knee, her finger fell away from the trigger
+she had come so near to pressing, while a half exultant joy leaped in
+her soul that she had not obeyed the first savage impulse to which her
+troubled mind gave birth. Not yet had she usurped God's prerogative.
+
+"Am I to be shot down like a dog?" cried the prisoner sharply.
+
+"A traitor may meet his death by rope, bullet, or knife. He deserves to
+suffer by each separate means," said the leader with a significant
+glance rather at Steve than at the prisoner.
+
+"See that the prisoner is safely bound." At his command Steve stepped
+forward and closely examined the cords with which Milt's ankles and
+wrists were bound. His hands were tied behind him, and with his feet in
+the shadow the watcher on the rocky ledge above had not noticed until
+this moment how utterly helpless he was.
+
+Once more she grasped the pistol with a determined grip, and
+breathlessly looked down on the group beneath her. A crisis was surely
+approaching.
+
+The captain gave a brief command.
+
+Two of his henchmen--men as unscrupulous and callous as he--began to
+remove some flat stones that were laid on a pile of cedar logs near the
+rocky sides of the quarry just beyond the prisoner. This spot was partly
+in the shadow, and Sally had not noticed it until her attention was
+directed thither.
+
+She leaned forward cautiously, and looked down in wonder and perplexity
+while the stones were lifted off, then two of the logs were shifted to
+one side, while a dark, irregular opening was revealed in the rock
+floor, as if the mouth of a small cave had been uncovered.
+
+Indeed, such was the case, for on blasting away the rock, some years
+before, this aperture had been discovered, and as it was a dangerous
+opening, descending far downward into the very heart of the hill, it had
+been closed by means of the cedar logs, and the large flat stones laid
+on top of them.
+
+As the logs were lifted to one side, a member of the band standing near,
+dropped a loose stone into the opening, while the girl anxiously
+listening, quickly caught her breath as she heard the object falling
+down and down, striking against the uneven sides of the pit in its
+descent until it seemed to have penetrated the very bowels of the earth.
+
+The man who had dropped the stone shuddered and turned away.
+
+"The devil take me! if I believe that hole has any bottom to it," he
+said in an awed voice, and quickly the thought flashed into Sally's
+brain as to the purpose for which the pit had been uncovered, and why
+the abandoned quarry had been selected for a meeting-place this night.
+
+Was a human body to be sacrificed to the fearsome depths of that dark
+cavern? The thought appalled her more than all else that had gone
+before, and she grew faint with terror. Even the prisoner seemed to look
+in speechless horror toward the black opening as if he, also, guessed
+the peril that threatened him.
+
+The very members of the secret conclave gazed with awe-stricken faces on
+the yawning, ominous hole, as though they were beginning to weaken at so
+dire a punishment. Even the act of a traitor seemed scarcely to merit a
+fate this terrible. Only the captain and his ally appeared unmoved and
+unrelenting. On the former's face a look of fiendish triumph slowly
+settled, as he gazed steadfastly into the awesome blackness of the
+cave-like opening--a hard, evil face it was, that held neither pity nor
+regret.
+
+"To your horses, boys!" The leader spoke quickly, commandingly, for his
+keen eyes saw signs of weakening among his followers. "Remember your
+oath! Remember your safety!" he called out warningly.
+
+"And remember the blood of an innocent man is on your hands!" cried the
+doomed man despairingly. "I sought to save your lives--you are
+wrongfully taking mine!"
+
+"He lies!" thundered the captain. "He sold himself to the officers of
+the law, an' but for a premature shot we might all now be dead, or in
+prison. They did not fire on him, bear in mind, but waited until he had
+passed on, an' given the signal that all was safe, an' we come near
+ridin' into the trap that was laid for us. He is a traitor to us, an' to
+our cause, an' deserves a traitor's death!"
+
+The accused began again to speak, but the captain cut short his words,
+fearful of their effect on the hearers.
+
+"Gag the prisoner!" he commanded, and despite Milt's protests, the order
+was speedily carried out, and soon the prisoner was lying bound and
+gagged, close to the dark opening piercing the very earth. "To your
+horses!" the leader cried savagely, "and to hell with all traitors."
+
+For a moment the members of the little band appeared to hesitate, moved
+by conflicting impulses, but the instinct of self-preservation is
+strongly implanted in the human breast, and will crowd out many noble
+qualities. The vacillation was but momentary; slowly and silently the
+men began to move away, each one eyeing his neighbor askance, as if to
+discover who held the fatal red bean within his keeping.
+
+Thus they melted into the night, stealing like dissolving shadows down
+to the thicket below where the horses were hitched.
+
+Soon after the tread of many horses' feet broke into the hush of the
+lonely scene. Some seemed going in one direction, some in another, and
+on the sleeping hills a darkness lay heavily--a darkness such as hides
+many a ghastly crime.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+
+The cheering light of hope began to break upon the crouching figure on
+the ragged edge of rock above the quarry, as she watched the men
+disappear, one by one, into the darkness on their way to their horses.
+
+It suddenly dawned upon her that the hapless prisoner was to be left,
+bound and gagged, in this lonely spot until the return of that member of
+the band who had drawn the red bean. Some subtle intuition warned the
+alert onlooker that this one was either the Captain or Steve. Possibly
+both might return on the murderous mission, and, but for her, only the
+few faint pitying stars of heaven would be witnesses of a dastardly
+crime, darker than the night itself.
+
+Supremely glad the girl felt at this moment that she had not been unduly
+hasty in her actions, for, by waiting, she would now have but one, or
+two at furthest, to overcome in order that Milt Derr might go free.
+
+Swift upon the thought came another--that by acting quickly she might be
+able to liberate the hapless prisoner before even these two should
+return.
+
+If she were but swift enough in her movements to reach the quarry and
+give her sweetheart the pistol she carried, then would it bode evil to
+the one who should come to wreak the oath of vengeance against the
+victim.
+
+She waited impatiently yet a little longer until the spot should be
+utterly deserted, and when her ears at last caught the sound of
+retreating hoofs descending the rocky hill, she tightly grasped one of
+the cedar bushes and leaning over the edge of the jutting rocks called
+softly:
+
+"Milt! Milt! I'm here. I'll soon set you free. Don't lose heart!"
+
+She understood that he could make no response, that the cruel gag
+prevented it, but as she listened intently, after her low-uttered words
+of encouragement, she heard him raise his fettered feet and strike them
+on the rock floor, one--twice--as if in response to her words of cheer.
+
+The light from the smouldering fire had grown too dim for her to see
+the movement, or note the look of bewilderment and incredulous surprise
+that swept over the prisoner's face, as he turned his body slightly, and
+looked up in the direction from which the voice had seemed to come.
+
+"I'm on the ledge of rock above the quarry," Sally continued, hurriedly.
+"It's too steep to climb down, but I'll go around, and come to you."
+
+Quick upon her words, she sprang to her feet, eager to skirt the edge of
+the quarry, the light of love, which is stronger than sun or moon,
+guiding her steps through the night's labyrinth. Had not her thoughts
+been entirely absorbed by the great eagerness in her heart to reach her
+lover and set him free before the return of his enemies, she would have
+marveled at the ease and speed with which she moved in making her way
+down the rugged hill toward its entrance.
+
+And still it seemed an interminable journey, each step haunted by the
+fear that the one on whom the fatal choice of executioner had fallen
+might return and wreak his vengeful mission before she could reach the
+spot by the circuitous route she had to take.
+
+This fear, while it startled her, also urged her footsteps to greater
+haste, and at times she almost ran. Suddenly her feet became entangled
+in one of the many creeping wild vines that spread a tangled network in
+her path, and unable to recover her poise, she fell headlong to the
+ground, striking heavily.
+
+In a wilted heap she lay there for some minutes, stunned by the fall,
+seemingly not caring to move; then, on slowly regaining her scattered
+wits, and recalling the haste and importance of her mission, she made an
+effort to regain her feet.
+
+Along with the effort a sharp pain darted through her ankle--so sharp
+and severe that she came near crying out, and after making a step or two
+forward, she sank, with a little moan, down on the ground again,
+clasping her spent ankle with both hands.
+
+A swarm of terrifying thoughts came crowding swiftly upon her. Had she
+broken it? If so, what should she do in her utter helplessness? A most
+unenviable situation it was--alone and crippled, far from human aid, a
+solitary object for pity, lying helpless amid those silent, gloomy
+hills, while the only person on whom she might have called in her dire
+extremity, was even more helpless than she, and urgently needed her
+assistance even now to avert the terrible fate that was drawing very
+near to him.
+
+As she sat thus in her abject misery, aloof from succor or sympathy,
+rubbing her sprained ankle aimlessly the while, and bemoaning by turns
+her misfortune and suffering, and the cruel situation of the bound and
+helpless prisoner within the stone quarry, she finally attempted to move
+her foot gently to and fro, and found to her surprise that the accident
+was only a sudden wrench, painful but not lasting. Hope once more buoyed
+her up, yet all this delay was a waste of precious time she could ill
+afford to lose.
+
+After a little prudent waiting she once more gained her feet and
+carefully took a step or two forward, and though the effort cost her
+some agony, it was not so intense as before, and seemed gradually
+wearing away, so with renewed determination she struggled bravely on, at
+times compelled to sit down on the ground and tightly clasp her ankle
+with both hands to deaden the pain.
+
+As she sat thus, rocking to and fro in her suffering, her ear caught the
+sound of a horse coming up the hill in the direction of the quarry. Up
+she again started, in a fresh frenzy of terror, her physical pain giving
+way to the greater mental agony that beset her. Forgetful of her recent
+accident, only remembering that the thing she had most dreaded might
+speedily come to pass, despite her efforts to prevent it, she struggled
+on.
+
+The pain seemed suddenly to go as quickly as it had come, and she pushed
+resolutely onward, unmindful of her weak ankle or of the darkness,
+praying fervently the while that strength might remain to her, and
+enable her to reach the quarry before the horseman did.
+
+The sound of the hoofbeats ceased. It was probable the rider had
+dismounted and was making his way on foot to where his victim lay. She
+was tempted to scream out--to rend the very silence with frantic cries
+for help, yet to what purpose? It might only serve to hasten the
+dastardly work. Oh, that she had waited at the edge of the quarry, and
+sought to defend her loved from that secure vantage ground!
+
+She gasped a prayer for aid, for strength, and redoubled her speed. At
+last the quarry's entrance was reached, and she had to pause a brief
+moment to catch her spent breath. Then, in an agony of suspense, she
+peered anxiously forward into the darkness and silence of the place.
+
+From out the gloom she heard the sound of approaching footsteps. Her
+heart stood still. Was she, indeed, too late? Had the cruel messenger
+already accomplished his bloody mission, and was he now returning from
+the scene of his dark crime?
+
+As these questions flew to her troubled brain, there came the perplexing
+knowledge that the sounds she heard were those of two men coming toward
+her, not one, and she felt, rather than saw, the presence of two dark
+forms rapidly approaching. Had Jade Beddow come back with Steve? They
+must both have ridden one horse.
+
+She would soon be discovered. Her life would surely pay the penalty of
+her presence there. But at least Milt's death should be avenged. She
+cared for naught else that might happen. She drew the pistol from its
+holder and leveled it at the two shadowy forms looming up before her.
+
+Suddenly from out the darkness and gloom there came the sound of a
+voice, low and guarded, yet the voice she most cared to hear in all the
+world--the voice of Milton Derr. It seemed as if the very dead had
+spoken.
+
+"Did you come back alone?" the voice asked of the companion shadow.
+
+"Yes, but the Captain may also soon return. Why do you ask?"
+
+"As I lay in yonder place, another voice than yours spoke to me out of
+the gloom, and bade me have courage."
+
+"You must have dreamed it," insisted Steve, for it was he. "We two must
+be the only livin' bein's on this hill, unless some other member of the
+band came back to set you free, as I have done. Whose voice was it?"
+
+"A woman's."
+
+"Then I know you dreamed it. What woman would be in this lonely spot at
+such an hour of the night? But let's not waste time in idle talk. You
+must get away from here, an' that quickly. Put as many miles as you can
+between this place an' daybreak. They turned your horse loose, but
+perhaps it would be better for you to make your way on foot. You must
+not be seen in this part of the country again, for if the Captain finds
+out I have not kept my oath, I will have to suffer in your place."
+
+"How can I get away, where can I go?" Milt anxiously asked.
+
+"Go up into the mountains--out West, anywhere except near this spot,"
+urged his companion. "Here's a little money to take along with you."
+
+The two men were now close upon Sally, as she crouched in a dark angle
+of the rocky wall, and, although they spoke in low tones, she heard each
+word. So near were they, in fact, she could have touched them by
+stretching forth her hand.
+
+"You have done me a good turn, Steve. I shall never forget it!" cried
+Milton Derr, gratefully.
+
+"You don't owe me any favors," answered Steve, hastily, almost roughly.
+"The Captain had me in a tight fix, an' I had to say what I did, an' do
+what he told me to do, but I never meant to harm you. I haven't forgot
+the other night. Good-by, Milt, take good care of yourself!"
+
+[Illustration: A rider.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+
+After Steve Judson had gone rapidly down the hill to where his horse was
+hitched and his companion was about to follow, Sally quickly put forth a
+detaining hand, and lightly touched him. "Milt!" she whispered.
+
+Twice before, on this same night, he had heard that familiar voice
+calling to him through the darkness, and there seemed something strange
+and uncanny in its mysterious repetition. Was it a trick of his lively
+imagination, or could there be something at fault with his brain? Yet
+the touch reassured him. The presence must be something tangible.
+
+"Sally!" he breathed in a low tone, filled with wonder.
+
+"Yes, I'm here," she hastened to reply, at the same moment emerging from
+the dark angle of the wall and stepping to his side, while he stood
+rooted to the path in utter amazement at her presence.
+
+"Sally," he again said, taking her into his arms and softly kissing her
+lips. "Is it really you? What brought you to this lonely spot?"
+
+"The fear that harm might come to you," she answered, simply.
+
+"But how did you know I was here? How came you to find this secret
+place?" he asked, still sorely puzzled.
+
+"I'll tell you as you go back," she answered hurriedly. "There's no time
+now. It's a long story. Let's leave this place as quickly as possible.
+It is a dangerous spot, and each moment we tarry increases the danger."
+
+"But how in the world did you get here?" he persisted, as they started
+down the hill.
+
+"I rode old Joe. He's hidden in the willow thicket down by the branch.
+He will carry double," she continued. "Let's go to where he's hitched,
+an' I'll take you as far as the New Pike Gate, then you can ride him to
+the station, and take the first early train. Just turn Joe loose. He'll
+find his way back home."
+
+"Then it was you who called to me as I lay in the quarry, gagged and
+bound," said Milton, as they hurried onward through the darkness, Sally
+directing the way to the clump of willows, and as they went along she
+told him something of what transpired during the eventful day.
+
+"I was half tempted to believe I had heard a spirit voice," continued
+her companion, tenderly, speaking of his own unhappy experiences at the
+quarry. "It seemed as if you had really spoken, yet, as I lay and
+listened, I could not imagine how you could be so near me at that hour
+and place. It must be a dream, I reasoned, a blessed dream, born of the
+darkness to cheer and comfort me in my last moments on earth, for such I
+believed them to be. You cannot understand what a solace it was to me,
+even to feel that your spirit was near me."
+
+"I did not intend that harm should come to you if I could prevent it,"
+said the girl, earnestly. "If worse had come to worst, I had a bullet
+for Jade Beddow's heart, and one for Steve's, too," she added, with
+emphasis.
+
+"Then you heard them go through the farce of trying me?"
+
+"Every word of it. I was looking down into the quarry all the while.
+Once I drew a bead on that villain, Jade Beddow, but something prompted
+me to wait yet a little longer. How glad I am that I did so. For you
+are now free, and, thank heaven! there's no bloodstain upon my hands."
+
+Soon Joe was gratefully turning his head toward home, though his burden
+was a double one.
+
+"And so Steve is the real traitor?" said Milt, as Sally gave an account
+of the interview she had overheard between the Captain and Steve in the
+ravine near the latter's home.
+
+"Yes, Jade Beddow worked on Steve's fears in order to make him lay the
+deed at your door."
+
+"It seems that Steve is not altogether bad. He still has a spark of
+gratitude in his bosom, but was forced to make charges against me in
+order to shield himself."
+
+"Jade Beddow is at the bottom of it all," insisted Sally, "either he or
+your uncle. They both want you out of the way, and will stop at nothing
+to carry out their plans. I don't know which is the greater villain of
+the two."
+
+"Perhaps I'd better stay around here a day or two longer, and settle
+some old scores before I go," said Milt, thoughtfully.
+
+"No! no!" the girl interposed, hastily. "You must leave here to-night.
+There are far too many dangers threatening you here, besides, your
+staying would bring speedy vengeance on Steve Judson. Both his safety
+and yours depends on your getting away as quickly and secretly as
+possible. No one must see you go, no one must suspect you have gone."
+
+"And if I go far away?" questioned Milton, with a deep touch of
+tenderness creeping into his voice, "if I find a home elsewhere, and can
+get steady employment, will you come to me when I shall send for you?"
+
+"Yes," was the exultant answer that quickly arose to her lips, but
+suddenly she remembered her promise to the Squire, and this bitter
+recollection brought with it a sickening sense of the binding obligation
+she was under for the sake of another's safety, and the unhappy
+knowledge stifled the one small word that was trembling for eager
+utterance on her very lips.
+
+"Will you come, sweetheart?" persisted the young man, in tones of
+persuasive tenderness, mistaking her silence for maidenly reserve, "or
+shall I come back for you when the time is at hand to claim you for my
+own?"
+
+"No! no! Milt, you must not think of coming back, when once you are
+safely away!" she cried impetuously.
+
+"Then you will come to me?"
+
+"Wait until you see what the future has in store," she answered
+evasively.
+
+"There's only one thing I care for it to have in store for me, and that
+is _you_. You will come to me?" he persisted.
+
+"If nothing prevents, I will come," she stammered. "But one cannot
+always tell what lies before."
+
+"What is there to prevent?" he demanded, sharply, a ring of jealousy
+creeping into his tones. "What could there be?"
+
+"A hundred things might arise that we know nothing of now," she answered
+hurriedly, understanding full well that she stood on most dangerous
+ground, that to confess to her lover the one thing that stood in the way
+of her going, would be to shatter all the plans she had laid for his own
+safety.
+
+She knew that rather than have her keep faith with the Squire, the
+nephew would deliberately give himself up to the officers of the law,
+and loudly proclaim the ownership of the hat which was about to cost
+Sally so great a price. No hope could she have to get her sweetheart
+away did he but suspect the sacrifice she was about to make for his
+sake. Neither prayers nor entreaties could avail in the face of such
+knowledge.
+
+For one brief moment a thought of escape came to her. She was sorely
+tempted to break her promise with the Squire, to delay her marriage with
+him, finding one excuse and another until she could hear from the absent
+one, and make her preparations to join him. Then all might yet end well.
+
+But there was her mother to be considered. She was about to forget this
+very important item in such an arrangement. What would become of her
+mother, should Sally do such a thing? She could not be left to the
+Squire's wrath, nor could she go along with her daughter. It seemed the
+meshes of fate were drawing tighter and tighter around the girl. All
+avenues of escape appeared closed to her.
+
+"To-day and to-night have been too trying for me!" cried Sally, wearily.
+"We both know what the past has been, we neither can tell about the
+future, so let us talk only of the present. That concerns us most."
+
+"But I don't understand," began Milton. "This seems a new mood. It isn't
+like you, Sally. You don't mean that you are beginning to care less for
+me?"
+
+"Have I acted to-night as if I was?" she asked sharply; his words had
+stung her into sudden resentment. "Did my going to the old deserted
+quarry for your sake, look as if I was caring less?"
+
+"No! no! forgive me!" he cried, humbly, abashed by the reproof of her
+words. "I did not mean that. I know your heart is mine, else you would
+not have been the brave and fearless girl you were to-night. God bless
+you!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+
+To Sally the next few days were more full of disturbing thoughts than
+events.
+
+So far as Milton Derr's safety was concerned, her mind was at ease, for
+he had succeeded in getting away, and no one was the wiser regarding his
+going--no one but herself and Steve.
+
+The horse that Milt had ridden on the night of his mysterious
+disappearance, and which had been turned loose by the raiders, had gone
+back to Mr. Peppers', and the general impression seemed to be that its
+rider had left that part of the country on account of the toll-gate
+troubles, with which his name was now being connected.
+
+Sally had arisen even earlier than usual the morning following her night
+journey to the old quarry, and, as she had expected, she found Joe
+waiting patiently at the lot gate to be let in. This she managed to do
+before her mother was up; therefore, no explanations were necessary,
+save to explain that she had not stayed overnight with Sophronia, and
+had quietly let herself in by means of the back door, so as not to
+disturb her mother, who had gone to bed.
+
+With each day slipping stealthily by, like the waters of a deep stream,
+whose surface seems almost stagnant, the time was drawing near to hand
+when the girl had promised to purchase her sweetheart's liberty with her
+own bondage.
+
+Now that Milton Derr was spirited safely away, quite beyond the reach of
+the Squire's hatred and vengeance, the temptation fell heavily upon the
+pretty toll-taker to repudiate her part of the bargain, given under such
+stress of anxiety. Such a promise should not be held inviolable. The
+Squire had deliberately forced her into it by his threats against his
+nephew.
+
+Yet the promise had been given in good earnest at the time, and accepted
+in good faith. The Squire had abided by his promise, she must now do
+likewise.
+
+Apart from all this--independent of the right or wrong, justice or
+injustice of the matter, the fact was self-evident, that though the
+nephew might be beyond the reach of the Squire's anger, she and her
+mother were not.
+
+His rage must of necessity fall on the defenseless heads of both, and
+the girl felt far more helpless now than before her champion had gone,
+for, in losing him, she had lost the only knight who might valiantly
+fight her battles.
+
+Looking at her helpless condition, there seemed but one thing left
+her--a marriage to the Squire. What though it should be a loveless one?
+Such marriages took place day after day, and some of them appeared to
+even bear the seal of contentment, if not of happiness. Not that this
+could ever prove true in her case. It were a thing impossible, with the
+memory of one she really loved ever enshrined in her heart.
+
+Fate, however, seemed determined to require a sacrifice of her, so why
+not make it and end the unequal struggle?
+
+Milton Derr was now not only a fugitive from justice, but debarred from
+ever returning, by the edict of the band, which had believed itself
+betrayed by him. To its members he was literally dead. For his own
+sake, as well as for Judson's safety, he could not hope to come back.
+There was still less hope that she could ever go to him, with her mother
+also to be provided for, and so--what did it matter if she paid the debt
+she had incurred? There was no one to suffer but herself.
+
+The Squire had confided to her mother the girl's promise to marry him,
+and Mrs. Brown was diligently spreading the news daily, despite her
+daughter's wishes to the contrary. Soon the announcement of the wedding
+was made in the town paper, to the girl's great disgust and indignation.
+Both the Squire and Mrs. Brown had conspired in this public notice of
+the approaching marriage, and the hapless girl began to feel, as they
+had intended, that matters had gone too far for her to rue the bargain.
+
+Every allusion to the affair made her heartsick and miserable. Mrs.
+Brown, who was filled with plans regarding the event, strongly urged a
+church wedding in town--it would have proven a morsel of supreme delight
+to her, but Sally steadfastly refused to consider the matter even for a
+single moment. She would be married at the toll-house, and at no other
+place. No one should witness the marriage but her mother, not even
+Sophronia was to be invited.
+
+This decision was a great grief to the mother. She had hoped and planned
+for far more elaborate things. In vain she reasoned and expostulated. It
+was all to little purpose--the girl was determined and obdurate.
+Arguments and entreaties were of no avail, not even inducements, for the
+Squire had given Mrs. Brown a sum of money quite sufficient to purchase
+the prospective bride a handsome wedding outfit.
+
+Sally was also firm and immovable in her rejection of this proposed
+expenditure. She would not receive any wedding finery from the Squire,
+nor would she marry in any that his money had purchased.
+
+"He must take me as I am, or not at all," she said.
+
+"Sally, I don't know what to make of you!" cried her mother, in dismay.
+"Refusin' a bran'-new weddin' dress that's offered you."
+
+"He can buy me dresses after he's bought me," answered Sally,
+bitterly. "I won't accept them now."
+
+[Illustration: "SALLY, I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO MAKE OF YOU," CRIED HER
+MOTHER.]
+
+The moments sped like birds of evil passage. Nearer and nearer drew the
+hour of sacrifice. Each day that might have been so full of joy, under
+other circumstances, was one of prolonged unhappiness, and she scarcely
+knew whether to rejoice or grieve when it was ended, for the morrow
+would be but a repetition of the day that had passed, and one day nearer
+the goal of her misery.
+
+The Squire would have proven a most ardent suitor had Sally consented,
+but she would have none of it. He hovered about the toll house, with the
+persistency of a youthful swain, fired by his first grand passion; but
+the bride elect very promptly sent him about his business, whenever he
+came spooning around, and curtly announced that she was busy getting
+ready to marry him, and, therefore, had no time for sentimental
+dallying.
+
+If, notwithstanding these repeated rebuffs, he chose to linger, it fell
+to Mrs. Brown to entertain him, which she generally did by finding
+excuses for Sally's brusque manners and strange words. "Skittish colts
+make the tamest ones in harness," said she.
+
+"When they're properly broke," thought the Squire, with a quiet chuckle
+of satisfaction.
+
+On the evening before the wedding the prospective groom presented
+himself at the New Pike Gate. His efforts at rejuvenation, in dress and
+manner, would have struck Sally as comically grotesque but for the part
+she was to play in the tragic comedy.
+
+"I thought I'd drop in to see if there's anything you wished done before
+to-morrow," said he, in a half apologetic way, as he readily interpreted
+the look on Sally's face to mean disapproval of his presence.
+
+The girl's heart gave a sudden leap of terror. To-morrow! Was it
+possible that her marriage was this near? She had tried to put away the
+thought of it, day by day, as if this could lengthen time, or stay the
+unhappy event, and now the hour was almost at hand. She might no longer
+forget, or put the fact aside. The shadow of its actual presence
+overshadowed her and chilled her very heart.
+
+A wild impulse flooded her brain, like a tidal wave from the sea of her
+despair. She would appeal to the Squire for a release from her
+promise--humbly petition his better self to spare her the misery of a
+marriage, loveless at least on her part. It could only bring sorrow to
+her, and doubtless unhappiness to him; since he could not wish to wed a
+wife, who brought him no love, and only deep aversion.
+
+Yes, she would appeal to him--it was the one final hope left her. He
+must not, could not refuse to release her after such a confession. When
+at last he started to go, the girl quickly caught up her hat, and said,
+"I will ride with you along the road a little way."
+
+"And after to-morrow, it will be all the way in life together, eh?"
+asked the old man jocosely, chucking her under the chin with one of his
+clumsy fingers. She instinctively shrank from his touch, but followed
+him into the night.
+
+Without, the elements seemed as foreboding as the girl's own unhappy
+thoughts. An ominous sky brooded in gloom. In the north a huge pile of
+clouds, sullen and heavy, lay banked high above the horizon, threatening
+hills of blackness that seemed to hem in her little world of woe. Gusts
+of wind from time to time came sweeping by, boisterous heralds,
+precursors of threatening storm.
+
+As the girl and the old man stood on the platform, after the door was
+shut behind them, he was the first to speak, as she unconsciously drew a
+little nearer to his side before a passing gust.
+
+"I must have a kiss, my dear--one little kiss, on this, our marriage
+eve."
+
+Her first impulse was to push him rudely from her, to deny him flatly
+such a request, though surely a lover's prerogative on the eve of
+marriage. Then, remembering the purpose for which she had followed him
+into the night, and the appeal she was about to make, she quickly
+realized that she must touch his compassion, not arouse his prejudice,
+if she would hope to win. Perhaps a submissive acquiescence on her part
+at this important moment might help to gain her cause.
+
+She paused a brief moment, nerving herself for the trying ordeal, then
+resolutely putting aside her aversion, holding in check all mutinous
+thoughts, she hastily put up her lips and lightly touched his red,
+coarse cheek.
+
+As she did so, a sudden flash from the muttering sky, like a reproof
+from heaven itself, for the act, made day of the night for one brief
+instant, and the clearly defined scene was enveloped in darkness again.
+
+The Squire's back was partly turned toward the road, but Sally, looking
+out full upon it, saw in that brief flash of vivid light, clearly
+defined against the white background of the pike, Milton Derr standing
+in the road not ten paces away.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+
+A pall of swiftly enveloping blackness closed about the toll-house and
+its surroundings, which had been revealed for one short space.
+
+The girl started back with a sharp cry, wrung from her in surprise and
+consternation at the sudden apparition she had beheld, while the Squire,
+naturally mistook her perturbation for fear of the storm.
+
+"Come! don't be afraid, my dear, you are quite safe," he said,
+soothingly, striving clumsily at the words to slip his arm about her
+waist. But she adroitly avoided the movement and retreated toward the
+door of the toll-house.
+
+"Hurry home!" she cried anxiously, thinking rather of ridding herself of
+his presence, than of entertaining a fear for his safety. "The storm is
+near at hand."
+
+"It's a good deal bluster," answered the Squire calmly, after a
+critical glance heavenward, "It may not rain at all. I hope it may not,
+as to-morrow's our wedding--only think of that, chickie, our wedding
+day!"
+
+"Hurry home!" repeated Sally, faintly, scarcely knowing what she was
+saying, and only desirous of hastening his departure, and ridding
+herself of his hateful presence--doubly hateful at this moment. There
+was a touch of very entreaty in her voice.
+
+"I thought you were going to ride with me a little way," remonstrated
+the Squire in disappointed tones. "You said you were."
+
+"No! no!" answered the girl hastily, "it's dangerous--besides, it's
+growing late."
+
+"That's scarcely treating me fair," protested the Squire, but he
+good-naturedly shambled along the platform, and went to get his buggy.
+"We won't begin to quarrel this early," he added with a laugh, "so--good
+night, my dear! and pleasant dreams to you!"
+
+"Good night!" echoed Sally, mechanically. She stood motionless until the
+sound of the vehicle grew faint in the distance, then, with quaking
+frame, she hurriedly jumped off the platform into the road, and groped
+her way to the spot where she had seen the dark, solitary figure
+standing fully revealed in that brief, intense light.
+
+She had heard no sound, save the Squire's clumsy movements, and later
+the rumble of his buggy along the pike, and as she eagerly started
+forward, the thought came to her that perhaps she was the dupe of her
+own vivid imagination--that the motionless figure imprinted on the
+retina of her eye, as it had been etched on the background of the night,
+was the creature of her excited brain, and had no part in the darkness
+without.
+
+"Milt!" she called out softly, inquiringly.
+
+She strained her ear attentively to the silence. The sound of labored
+breathing near at hand betrayed the presence she sought, and putting
+forth her hand fearlessly she touched the substance of the shadow she
+had seen.
+
+"Milt!" she once more called aloud.
+
+With a gesture of impatience, or anger, she knew not which, he roughly
+shook off the hand laid lightly upon him, with the impatient mumbling of
+a fierce oath.
+
+"So, it's true," he said at last; but his voice sounded strange and
+harsh, and totally unlike the familiar caressing tones she had so
+longed to hear once more.
+
+[Illustration: "SO IT'S TRUE," HE SAID, BUT HIS VOICE SOUNDED STRANGE
+AND HARSH.]
+
+A deep silence fell between them, and in its strained quiet she could
+hear her heart beating loudly in her bosom, as if it were the pendulum
+of some muffled clock ticking off the dreary moments of a life.
+
+"Yes," she answered, finally breaking the intense silence, her voice
+scarcely more than a faint whisper. It seemed that an age had passed
+since the question was asked.
+
+"Sally!" he cried sharply, as if her reply had been a keen knife thrust.
+"You don't mean it!"
+
+"It is true," she said, simply.
+
+"And I would not believe it, even though I read it by chance in one of
+the papers from here. I said it was a lie. I really thought it was
+one--a wicked lie--a damnable one--I didn't know women," he added, with
+a bitter laugh.
+
+"Don't blame me, Milt," she faltered. "I did it for the best."
+
+"For the best?" he echoed, scornfully, swift anger following close upon
+his words. "Is it for the best to wreck my life--my faith in you?"
+
+"It need not wreck your life, it must not," answered Sally, earnestly.
+"I'm not worth it. Oh! why did you come back?" she asked sorrowfully.
+
+"I came back to convince myself that it was a lie. I was a fool for
+coming, I'll admit that; but women have made fools of men ever since the
+days of Eve."
+
+The two walked on up the road, further away from the toll-house.
+
+"You should not have come back," persisted the girl. "I hoped you never
+would. I beg you to go away again, this very night. It is best for us
+both. Some day you will find a true woman who is worthy of your love,"
+she added with a sob rising in her throat, but Milt in his anger and
+resentment failed to rightly interpret its meaning.
+
+"Then you have been fooling me all the while!" he cried, hot with
+indignation. "You have made me believe that you cared nothing for
+him--that you loathed him, even--well, perhaps you did, but you loved
+his money--you've sold yourself for that."
+
+"No! no! Milt, don't say that!" cried the girl imploringly. "I may have
+sold myself to him, but not for money--don't think that of me!"
+
+"If not for money--for what?" demanded Derr, sternly. "For what else but
+his houses and lands?"
+
+Once again the impulse was strong upon her to confess the truth, yet
+swift to follow the impulse came the unhappy knowledge that to do this
+would be to seal Milt's fate. If she would save him, she must sacrifice
+herself. For his sake her lips must remain mute now, and perhaps
+forever.
+
+"It _is_ a sale, an outright sale!" persisted Derr. "You really don't
+care for him, you never did. It is only his money you are after--money,
+not love has won the day, it always will. I might have known as much,
+but I was simple, and had a simple faith. I didn't understand the
+falseness of women's hearts."
+
+"Would I have risked my life, as I did, to get you out of the clutches
+of the raiders that night, if I had cared nothing for you?" asked Sally
+in sharp earnestness, unable longer to bear his reproaches in silence.
+
+"And to what purpose?" demanded her companion. "Why didn't you let them
+kill me, as they proposed doing? It would have been kinder to have let
+them put me out of the way," he added bitterly.
+
+"Oh, why didn't you stay away, when once you had gone?" she asked. "It
+would have been far kinder to me."
+
+"I begin to understand now why you were so anxious to have me go," he
+said. "Probably you feared I would make trouble. Did you think I might
+attempt to harm your youthful, handsome lover?" he asked, sneeringly.
+"No wonder you only cared to talk of the present, not of the future that
+night we parted. No wonder you parried my questions when I asked if you
+would some day come to me. I marveled then at your strange silence, but
+the reason is now as clear as day. All the while you were urging me to
+go away, you were expecting to marry him after I had gone! Confess
+now--wasn't your word given to him before I went away?"
+
+"Yes," acknowledged Sally, "but let me explain a few things you do not
+understand, I"--
+
+"It is unnecessary," quickly interrupted Milt. "Those things I _do_
+understand are all-sufficient for me. You wanted me away from here, and
+you succeeded in getting me to go--you preferred the Squire's money to
+my poverty, and you are on the eve of getting his money, too. Perhaps
+you are in league with those rascals who may have meant only to frighten
+me, and cause me to run away, like a cowardly cur. They might not have
+harmed me--I doubt now if they intended to.
+
+"It is not too late, though, to thwart your plans and his," continued
+the speaker with increasing anger. "You are not yet married to that
+brute, and, by heaven! you shall not be! I swear it! I will kill him
+first--the scoundrel! the hound!" he cried passionately, overswept by
+the rage that swayed him, like a tree twisted by the storm.
+
+"Milt, Milt, don't talk that way! You mustn't harm him! You shall not!"
+cried the girl, terror-stricken by the passionate utterances of her
+companion.
+
+Her words were but fuel to the flame. They goaded him into a sort of
+frenzy.
+
+"So you beg for him, do you? You don't want him hurt--your lover, your
+husband that is soon to be. By heaven! I'll wring his wrinkled,
+villainous neck like I would a chicken's, d--n him. He's driven me from
+his roof, he's taken you from me, but I'll even up old scores at last."
+
+As the maddened man started up the road, Sally frantically caught hold
+of him, striving to pacify his anger, to reason with him, to make him
+understand his unjustness toward her, but he roughly shook himself free,
+and moved the faster.
+
+"Milt! Milt! come back!" she cried entreatingly, but he made no answer,
+and hurried on.
+
+"Milt, listen to me! It's all my fault. I, alone, am to blame. Come
+back! For God's sake, don't do anything rash!"
+
+Again she tried to overtake him, to lay hold of him, but he broke into a
+run, and left her far behind, crying entreatingly to him through the
+darkness.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+
+The darkness enveloped the hurrying man as it had done once before this
+night, when he stood silent and motionless in the middle of the road,
+near the toll-house, yet the girl still followed his retreating figure
+persistently through the gloom, beseeching him to return, to relinquish
+his fell purpose.
+
+She stopped at last, understanding that it was futile to follow further,
+that he was deaf to her entreaties to turn back, and that she could no
+longer hope to overtake him. As she stood still and listened, she heard
+his retreating footsteps growing fainter and fainter far up the road.
+
+Some minutes later, a second vivid band of light revealed his tall, dark
+figure sharply silhouetted against the sky, from the brow of the hill he
+had climbed, then darkness came again, like a black curtain, and blotted
+him from sight.
+
+The girl stood for some time in the middle of the road, with hands
+clasped tightly together, and tear-stained face, striving to think
+connectedly, to reason calmly in the face of a new trouble.
+
+What must she do? Which way to turn?
+
+She well knew Milt's disposition--a veritable powder magazine it was,
+readily ignited by an angry spark, yet soon over with, a flash in the
+pan, one might say, without a bullet behind to be sped on its mission of
+evil.
+
+Such dire threats as he had just uttered, were but the violent outburst
+of a sudden passion, and signified no durability of purpose, no fixed
+resolve. Long before he could reach the Squire's place, his better
+judgment would surely prevail--the calm after a spent storm. Probably he
+was already beginning to repent his hot temper, and regret his hasty
+speech.
+
+That it was without cause Sally could not aver. From Milton's
+standpoint, at least, he must feel that he had been most shamefully
+used, not so much at the hands of the Squire, in the present instance,
+as by the girl herself. How meanly he must think of her--heartless,
+mercenary, hypocritical! And yet she dared not defend her actions by
+telling him the truth.
+
+As she stood thus, uncertain and confused, looking anxiously toward the
+hill where she had last seen the solitary figure crowning it, a
+reassuring thought came to her. Even should Milt go as far as the
+Squire's, he would not be able to gain entrance to the house, for his
+uncle had doubtless reached home before this, and he would be little
+likely to admit any one into his house at that hour of the night,
+especially an avowed enemy, such as he knew his nephew to be.
+
+If Milt attempted to make any trouble at all, he would wait until the
+morrow--her wedding day. How hateful the thought of this event now
+seemed to her! She felt at the moment that if Milt would only come back
+and tempt her to flight, this unhappy marriage would never take place.
+She would risk anything, everything, and marry the younger man despite
+all else. Why had she not thought of this sooner? Oh! yes, she
+remembered, it was on her mother's account. What would become of her?
+
+As the unhappy girl recalled her lover's angry words, she felt that she
+deserved them all--each word of harsh reproach, of fierce anger, and
+just scorn. It was a very wonder he had not offered to strike her dead
+as she stood before him. To think he had even been a witness to her
+kiss, and had moreover heard from her very own lips the confession that
+she was about to wed his hated kinsman. It was little wonder that Milt
+was half crazed by jealousy and rage.
+
+If he did but know the terrible sacrifice she was about to make for his
+sake, he must surely pity her, and no longer taunt her for her seeming
+perfidy and falseness of heart.
+
+The girl found herself wondering that her lover's anger had not centered
+on herself rather than the Squire. She was the one on whom the younger
+man should have avenged himself. Perhaps it was a fortunate thing, after
+all, that she had not followed him further into the night. He might have
+been tempted, in his ungovernable rage, to wreak his vengeance on her as
+well as on his hated kinsman. A strange, unusual timidity suddenly took
+possession of her--a feeling that was near akin, to dread of the younger
+man, irresponsible in his jealous rage, though scarcely a fear of the
+man himself, so much as of the demon of jealousy she had aroused in
+him.
+
+Beset with this new sensation, she peered cautiously into the night, as
+though one might be lurking in hiding near by, ready to spring forth
+upon her, then realizing that nothing but darkness lay around her, she
+abruptly turned her steps toward the toll-house.
+
+Alas! the bitter disappointment of life. Thus had come to naught all the
+efforts in Milton Derr's behalf, her own sacrifice a useless thing,
+since, instead of averting the dangers that threatened him, she had
+unwittingly been the cause of involving him in yet greater perils.
+
+Even though his threats against the Squire were but idle ones--blasted
+buds of evil without promise of fruition, as she believed them to be,
+still, if Milt persisted in tarrying longer in the locality, he was not
+only putting his own life in jeopardy, but would also bring on Steve
+Judson swift retribution as well.
+
+She had tried to impress these facts on Milt's mind before he had gone
+away. Why had he not remained away as she had entreated him to do, on
+parting?
+
+Then she remembered that he would not have returned--that he would
+probably have known nothing of her marriage until it was too late, if he
+had not read an announcement of it in the papers. Her mother was really
+at the bottom of it all, she was chiefly to blame for Milt's return; for
+many things, in fact, now bearing the bitter fruit of sorrow.
+
+Mrs. Brown had caused the notice of the marriage to be put in the paper
+without her daughter's knowledge or consent. Sally had begged her mother
+to say as little about the wedding as possible, and if that obdurate
+person had only heeded the request, all this present trouble might
+easily have been avoided.
+
+Beset with anxious doubts, intangible fears, disquieting thoughts,
+feeling the while most bitterly toward her mother for the officious part
+she had persistently played in all this unhappy affair, Sally retraced
+her steps slowly to the toll-house.
+
+Poor girl! Truly her marriage eve was not a propitious one.
+
+The first objects on which the girl's eyes rested the next morning, when
+she awoke after a troubled sleep, were the simple wedding garments
+spread out carefully on some chairs near her bed, and as she lay and
+looked at them in bitterness of heart and spirit, she heard her mother
+astir in the kitchen preparing breakfast.
+
+Sally half rose in bed. Her very heart seemed faint within her as she
+gazed on all this hateful reminder of what the day held in store, and
+with a quick sob she buried her face in her hands.
+
+As she sat thus--a tearful, sobbing figure--surely a strange posture for
+a prospective bride on her bridal morn, she heard a horse galloping
+swiftly along the road, and as the sound came nearer, she found her
+attention gradually absorbed by it. There seemed something of undue
+haste in the rider's speed.
+
+A moment later the winded animal stopped at the toll-house gate, while a
+loud knock quickly summoned Mrs. Brown to the door. Sally's alert ear
+caught the sound of a negro's voice without, speaking rapidly and
+excitedly, then a sharp exclamation from the toll-taker followed.
+
+The listening bride-elect could not distinguish the negro's hurried
+words, nor guess the import of his message, but finally she caught one
+single word that her mother uttered, and that word was--"murdered."
+
+Scarcely had it reached the girl's strained attention, when she sprang
+hurriedly out of bed, and catching up her wedding dress threw it hastily
+over her shoulders. Then her strength seemed suddenly to go, and she
+stood trembling and white, her eyes fixed on the door of her room in a
+vacant stare, her mind a blank to all surroundings.
+
+Her mother found her thus when she came into the room a few moments
+later, visibly agitated.
+
+"You heard it then?" she said huskily, looking into Sally's
+terror-stricken face.
+
+"He could not have done it!" gasped Sally, brokenly. "It was only an
+idle threat," she added, her voice sinking to a whisper.
+
+"Of course he didn't do it!" exclaimed her mother, catching only her
+daughter's first words. "He was murdered--murdered in cold blood!"
+
+The girl opened her mouth as if to speak again, but the sound crumbled
+to unintelligible murmurs, as the fear of uttering words no ear must
+ever hear flashed through her bewildered mind, so she stood looking
+blankly at her mother, with wide-open eyes of horror, while the color
+fled from her face, leaving a ghastly pallor instead.
+
+All the dreadful interval she was thinking of Milton Derr rather than
+his victim, and she started like a guilty thing at her mother's next
+words:
+
+"There's but one person in the whole wide world who could have done
+this, to my thinkin', an' that's Milt Derr!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+
+Throughout the day there seemed an interminable passing the New Pike
+gate. Many stopped to condole with its inmates, a few through genuine
+sympathy, a greater number urged by a secret desire to see how the
+bride-elect bore up under the dire misfortune that had come almost with
+the suddenness of the lightning's stroke. The curiosity of these was
+baffled, for the girl shut herself closely in her own room, and denied
+herself to all.
+
+When the news of the tragedy reached town the coroner came out to the
+Squire's place to hold an inquest, while numerous others followed in his
+wake, drawn thither by the morbid interest that attracts many to the
+scene of similar crimes.
+
+Mrs. Brown waited on the gate, eager to know all that was thought or
+said of the deplorable affair, and though her daughter asked not a
+single word, the mother, who plied with voluble questioning almost
+every soul that passed through the gate, told her from time to time of
+the rumors that were afloat. Thus the girl learned of the verdict on the
+coroner's return--that Squire Bixler had met his death in his own room
+the night before, by a knife-thrust at the hand of some person or
+persons unknown. The victim had evidently been dead several hours when
+his body was found by one of the servants who came to see why the Squire
+was so tardy on his wedding morn.
+
+Robbery may have been a cause, for the Squire's pocket-book was found
+lying open and empty at his side, and a small drawer in the tall clock
+had been pulled out and searched yet the victim's heavy gold watch had
+not been taken, and nothing else in the room seemed to have been
+disturbed or molested.
+
+The murderer had not broken into the house, evidently, for the front
+door was found to be unlocked, and an entrance and exit had doubtless
+been effected through that. Considering this fact, it seemed a highly
+plausible theory that the murderer must have been admitted to the house
+by the Squire himself, and that it was doubtless some one whom the
+Squire well knew, else the door had not been unlocked to this one in the
+late hours of the night.
+
+The Squire was dressed, with the exception of his coat and shoes, and
+had evidently not gone to bed, therefore the murder must have been
+committed along in the early part of the night, before his usual
+bedtime. The body lay on the floor near a candle-stand before the fire.
+The candle had burned entirely down in its socket, and the melted tallow
+had afterward hardened into a cake round the bowl of the stick. Amid the
+embers in the fireplace, under the charred end of a log that had burned
+in two and fallen to one side, was found the remnant of a gray felt hat.
+
+From the position and range of the cut in the body, the blow had
+probably been given while the victim was standing up facing his
+assailant. His murderer had not stolen upon him unawares. The blow had
+been a true one, and had gone straight to the heart. The one thrust had
+been sufficient, and the victim had dropped at the feet of his slayer.
+
+When all these various facts had been learned, active minds began to
+cast about for some clue as to the identity of the murderer, and for
+some motive besides robbery.
+
+While the Squire had never been a very popular man, in a general way, he
+was not known to have a single enemy who would be likely to do so
+dastardly a deed. Neither was the Squire in the habit of keeping money
+about the house, so that if the murderer knew the ways of his victim, he
+could not hope to gain a rich reward, therefore some motive besides
+robbery must have actuated the crime. What this motive was, had yet to
+be discovered, provided the adage came true that "murder will out."
+
+Of those who were unfriendly to the Squire, none was so prominent to
+mind as his nephew, Milton Derr, no one would be more profited by the
+Squire's death than he, for he was next of kin, and, his uncle being
+unmarried, the property would revert to him. This point was especially
+emphasized--the uncle being unmarried, and the fact was strongly
+commented upon, that it was on the very eve of the Squire's marriage
+that he was murdered. Could the motive have been jealousy? The cause of
+the open rupture between the two men was generally known--that a woman
+was at the bottom of it and this woman was the one to whom the Squire
+was to have been wedded. The whole story was told and retold with many
+variations.
+
+The neighbors spoke of these things in guarded undertones and with grave
+shakings of the head, and although no outspoken accusations were made,
+there was an undercurrent of suspicion, deepening into belief, and
+growing hourly, like a stream that rapidly swells beyond its banks when
+fed by countless minor tributaries. Public opinion was slowly and surely
+fastening the deed on the nephew's shoulders.
+
+These vague rumors and surmises were conveyed from time to time by Mrs.
+Brown to her daughter's ears, and while the girl steadfastly and
+persistently asserted Milton Derr's innocence, there was, nevertheless,
+a horrible and slowly strengthening conviction at work in her own bosom
+which she could neither silence nor subdue--a conviction that warned her
+she was building on false hopes, which might at any moment crumble at
+the touch of circumstantial evidence, and reveal her lover not only to
+the world, but to her own prejudiced eyes, as a murderer whose soul was
+stained with a dark crime.
+
+Closely allied to this harassing fear was a far different feeling that
+she could neither still nor repress, though it seemed a heartless and
+even cruel one--a feeling of great thankfulness that the Squire's
+untimely death had relieved her of a sacrifice that would have been but
+a living death to her.
+
+How could she be sorry that he was no longer alive to claim this
+sacrifice? To pretend to a grief she did not feel was but base
+hypocrisy. Within her heart of hearts she was glad that she was free.
+Her only sorrow lay in the tragic manner of his death, and in the secret
+fear that Milton Derr, half crazed with a passionate jealousy, was
+responsible for it. Had it been possible to recall the Squire to life
+again, and so blot out the fearful act of the past night, she would most
+gladly have done so, and accepted her fate without a murmur, if its
+reward had been Milton's safety and innocence.
+
+Possibly she was the only one who knew of Derr's presence in the
+neighborhood the night before. If such was the case, and he had
+succeeded in getting away without being seen by others, she would keep
+the dreadful secret securely locked in her own bosom, and no one should
+ever suspect its presence. She centered all hope of his safety on this
+supposition.
+
+Along toward noon, some one passing the New Pike gate on the way from
+town, brought the latest news bearing on the tragedy.
+
+As Mrs. Brown sought her daughter's presence, as soon as the informant
+had gone, her tone was almost jubilant, as she said:
+
+"Well, they've caught the murderer."
+
+The girl looked up at her mother mutely, almost piteously, as if she
+would be spared the unhappy tidings, of whose evil import some subtle
+intuition had already reached her brain.
+
+"It's just as I expected," continued Mrs. Brown, full of the news she
+had brought. "They caught Milt Derr as he was gettin' on the cars at
+Grigg's Station, fifteen miles from here. The sheriff had telephoned to
+all the places around to be on the lookout for him. He had sold his
+watch, and was about to buy a ticket somewheres out West when they
+arrested him. They've brought him to town, an' he's safe in jail there
+now, thank goodness! There'll soon be a first-class hanging in this
+neighborhood. I hope," she added, with fervor.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX.
+
+
+The next day the Squire was buried.
+
+The funeral seemed one of especial sadness, shadowed as it was with the
+stain and mystery of a dark crime, and with neither kith nor kin present
+to mourn, for Milton Derr was behind iron bars, and the girl flatly
+refused to attend the funeral, despite her mother's urging.
+
+"I won't add a hypocrite's tears to my other shortcomings, and neither
+will I be a show to some folks who will go more out of idle curiosity
+than sympathy," said the girl, decisively, and so her mother went alone.
+
+The toll gate was thrown open to the public during the funeral, which
+was no more than a proper mark of respect to the Squire's memory, for he
+had long been president of the road, and was a large stockholder,
+besides.
+
+The day itself was one of gloom and dreariness, with low-hanging clouds
+surcharged with sullen rain, while at each frequent blast of wind there
+was a skurrying of fallen leaves, seeking, like sentient things, to find
+shelter from the pitiless rain.
+
+The interment was in the family burying ground, where the first wife lay
+at rest, and the tall weeds and grasses of the enclosure were trampled
+by many eager feet.
+
+During the services, which were held in the house, the women and
+children huddled together in the "best room," looking about them with
+awed, half-frightened faces, as if a ghostly visitant might suddenly
+stalk forth out some gloomy corner, while the men stood in little groups
+in the hall, or the Squire's "living room," and when they spoke in low
+tones, it was mostly of the man within the prison cell, and little of
+the one within his coffin.
+
+The coming of Mrs. Brown, unaccompanied by her daughter, gave new food
+for comment, and for a time following her arrival, the victim and the
+accused were both forgotten in the fact of the strange absence of one
+who might almost be called a "widowed bride."
+
+Early that morning, on looking from the toll-house window, the first
+sight to greet the unhappy girl had been the hearse containing the
+casket for the Squire coming along the road from the town, and the sight
+had so unnerved her that she once more shut herself in her room, a prey
+to harrowing thoughts.
+
+Long after the mother had gone to the funeral she sat motionless and
+dazed, listening in a sort of hopeless apathy to the sound of vehicles
+rolling by, carrying those to pay their last tribute of respect to the
+dead; then, after ages, it seemed, she heard the sound of their return,
+and understood that "earth had been given to earth," and still no
+widow's weeds were necessary for her, no blinding tears need be shed--in
+truth, they would have been but a cruel mockery.
+
+She felt a profound pity for the one whose life had gone out so quickly,
+and in so tragic a manner, yet there was a deeper pity, and--God forgive
+her!--a changeless love in her heart for the poor, unfortunate being,
+whose insane jealousy had brought him to his present strait. Yet why
+blame him? She, herself, was the cause of it all. She could not help but
+remember this; indeed, she did not wish to forget it. It was his great
+love for her, and her own seeming unworthiness that had wrought his
+ruin. She was the guilty one in the eye of God, not Milton Derr.
+
+A day or two after the funeral, Billy West came by the gate one
+afternoon on his way from town, and brought word to the unhappy girl
+that Milton had asked to see her, and begged that she would come to the
+jail. He had something of importance to say to her.
+
+"How does he look? How does he seem to bear up under the strain?" asked
+Sally, anxiously.
+
+"He's broken down considerable," admitted Billy. "He looks ten years
+older, to my thinkin'. Of course, I said what I could to cheer him up,
+but I'm afraid he's got himself into a pretty bad box."
+
+"I don't believe he did it," affirmed Sally, faintly, but she turned her
+eyes away as she made the denial.
+
+"It don't look possible," agreed Billy. "It really don't. I never would
+have thought it of him. I hope he can prove himself clear of the deed."
+
+"Won't you ask Sophronia to come by to-morrow and go with me?" asked
+Sally, thoughtfully, "I hate to go alone."
+
+"Yes, to be sure," answered Billy, "I'll ride over to-night an' see
+her."
+
+On the morrow Sophronia came. Mrs. Brown at once suspected Sally's
+motives in going to town, and when she put the question point-blank to
+her daughter, Sally frankly confessed that she was going to see Milton.
+
+"Sally Brown!" cried her mother, with her hands upraised. "The idea of
+your standin' there, an' tellin' me you air goin' to see that miserable
+murderer, that's not only cheated you out of a good husband, but out of
+a lot o' property besides. He ought to be hung, an' you know it!"
+
+"He sent for me, and I'm going," answered Sally, simply.
+
+"Well, go!" cried her mother, wrathfully, "go! an' soon folks will be
+sayin' that, like as not, you also had a hand in gettin' the Squire put
+out of the way. It seems a hard thing to say about your own child, but I
+declare it begins to look like it," added Mrs. Brown, bitterly.
+
+Quick upon the words the girl's eyes flashed forth something of the
+indignation she felt at their cruel significance, and an angry torrent
+of denial rose to her lips, and yet it was suddenly stayed by an inner
+voice that seemed to say--"Who but you has brought it all about?"
+
+She did, indeed, have a hand in it, but not in the way her mother
+suggested. Sally turned away and made no answer.
+
+When she was brought face to face with the prisoner, the gloom of the
+place, the grated cell, the dismal air of confinement, burst upon her in
+startling reality, and forced on her lively imagination the full
+significance of her lover's peril.
+
+Milt looking pale and careworn, while in his dark eyes lingered the look
+of the hunted, supplanting the frank, free gaze they had worn in his
+careless freedom. He was a prisoner, and the sweet freedom of the hills
+was no longer his portion. It was some moments before the girl could
+trust herself to speak, and in Milt's eyes there also lingered a
+suspicious moisture.
+
+The jailer and Sophronia had discreetly withdrawn to the further end of
+the dim corridor, and were talking over Milton's case in low voices of
+deep concern.
+
+"Sally," said the prisoner, in an undertone that reached only her ears,
+"I have sent for you to put myself right in your eyes. After what
+happened the other night, and what I had said to you in my ungovernable
+jealousy, there's only one thing you could think of me in connection
+with this miserable affair, and I can't blame you in the least for
+thinking it. You, of all others, have the best right to call me a
+murderer, but as God in heaven is my judge, I swear to you, by the
+sacred memory of my dead mother, that I did not commit that crime!"
+
+"I couldn't bring myself to believe you would do so dreadful a thing,"
+said the girl, tearfully, looking into his dark eyes with the mists of
+doubt clearing her own, despite all the damaging circumstances.
+
+"I didn't do it!" asserted Milt, vehemently. "I know that everything
+points to me as the guilty man, in your eyes, at least, but I am not
+guilty. It is true that I was in a frenzy, and quite beside myself with
+anger when I made those foolish threats. If I could have met my uncle,
+then and there, I think I could have throttled him and been glad of the
+chance.
+
+"Before I had gone half the distance to his house, I began to
+understand what a fool I had been, and I was half tempted to turn back
+and beg your forgiveness, but pride would not let me, and I walked on
+almost to my uncle's gate that leads into the avenue.
+
+"As I walked along, I began to reason more calmly with myself. Why
+should I burden my soul with a crime on account of a woman that had
+treated me thus falsely? What good could come of it? I was a fool for
+ever coming back. I should have stayed when once I had gotten safely
+away.
+
+"To be seen in this locality was only courting death, not only for
+myself, but for Steve Judson, who had befriended me. After the risk he
+had run to save my life, it would be perfidy to bring vengeance on his
+head by my return. I truly hope he has left this part of the country
+since they have caught me," added Milton, earnestly.
+
+"While I was thinking over all these things," he continued, "I heard a
+horseman coming along the road, and fearing that a flash of lightning
+might reveal my presence to some one I knew, I hastily climbed a fence
+opposite my uncle's place, and started off across the country in the
+direction of Grigg's Station, fully determined that I would take the
+first train possible, and forever leave this spot.
+
+"Imagine my consternation when I was arrested the next morning, charged
+with the very crime I had threatened to commit the night before in my
+blind passion.
+
+"I could scarcely believe that it was not some hideous joke that was
+being played on me, as a just punishment for my wicked thoughts, and
+when they told me my uncle was dead--murdered--and that I was accused of
+the crime, my own actions must have led them to believe me guilty. I
+almost began to wonder, if, in some insane moment of self-forgetfulness,
+I could really have committed the deed. Then calmer judgment came to my
+rescue and proclaimed my innocence. This is the truth, the whole truth,
+of that wretched night, Sally!" cried Milt.
+
+"I believe you, every word" said the girl simply.
+
+"That is why I sent for you. I wanted you to know the full facts in the
+case. If you believe me innocent, I can stand the censure of the whole
+world."
+
+"And now that the Squire is dead, and can no longer harm you, I too,
+have something to confess," admitted the girl. "I am now free to tell
+why I promised to marry him. I did it for your sake, Milt."
+
+"For my sake!" he echoed.
+
+"Yes, the night the New Pike gate was attacked, your hat was found near
+the toll-house, in the dusty road. Don't you remember you had written
+both our names under the lining the day of the picnic last September?
+Squire Bixler had that hat in his possession, and was taking it to town
+to give it to the officers. I knew if they closely examined the hat,
+they would find our names, and I knew you would be arrested and sent to
+prison. So I promised to marry the Squire if he would give me that hat,
+and let you go free."
+
+"And you did this for my sake?" asked Milton Derr, falteringly. "Sally!
+Sally! can you ever forgive me?" he cried penitently.
+
+But even as he looked, pleadingly, anxiously, into her upturned face,
+the light of forgiveness had already illumined the gentle, tear dimmed
+eyes.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX.
+
+
+The fall term of court was now in session, and Milton Derr was put on
+trial for his life.
+
+The case, deeply tinged with romance and mystery, aroused a lively and
+unusual interest, both in the town and county, and during the progress
+of the trial the courtroom was crowded with interested spectators.
+
+While the prisoner had seemed at first both careless and indifferent
+regarding his fate, now, since his interview with his former sweetheart,
+he began to feel a strong and urgent desire to prove his innocence, and
+to do what he could to help clear the mystery of the murder.
+
+The girl had given him a point to unravel.
+
+"Do you remember telling me that a horseman came down the road the night
+you were near the Squire's gate?" she asked of Derr on her second visit
+to the jail.
+
+"Yes, it was the fear of meeting this horseman, and perhaps being
+recognized by him in the lightning's sudden glare, that led me to quit
+the highway and take to the fields."
+
+"Well, that horseman never passed me, and I feel sure he never passed
+through the New Pike gate," said Sally, thoughtfully. "I waited in the
+road some little time, hoping you would turn back, and even after I had
+gone to bed it was a long time before I fell asleep. I heard no sound of
+passing. Whoever that rider was, he stopped at, or near Squire Bixler's
+place, and came no further. If we could manage to find out who this
+person was, the mystery of the murder might be solved."
+
+There was little evidence to be introduced on either side during the
+progress of the trial, and what little there was helped to weigh against
+the prisoner. His movements at Grigg's Station were those of a man
+striving to avoid notice, indeed, his whole bearing before and after his
+arrest was that of a guilty person seeking to make good his escape.
+
+The accused offered no explanation of his presence at the station, where
+he was on the point of buying a ticket to the West when arrested. To
+have done so he would have had to disclose his connection with the
+raiders, the cause of his flight and return, and his presence in the
+immediate neighborhood of his uncle's farm on that fatal night.
+
+He was in an unfortunate position, it seemed, when everything appeared
+to work to his disadvantage, and help throw suspicion on his movements,
+and yet he dared not turn the needed light on them. He knew he was safe,
+so far as Sally was concerned, in regard to meeting her at the
+toll-gate, and the idle threats he had uttered against the Squire in the
+first heat of passion and jealousy.
+
+His enmity toward his uncle was too well known, however, to escape
+comment, and was easily proven, along with sundry angry words he had
+uttered against his kinsman when first he had left his uncle's roof,
+words that had lost nothing of their sharpness by the lapse of time, and
+were now repeated with such embellishments that even the speaker had
+difficulty in recalling or recognizing the original form in which they
+had been first uttered.
+
+Moreover, the great benefits that the nephew would derive from his
+uncle's death, should it occur before a marriage could take place, were
+clearly brought forth, and a strong incentive shown for the commission
+of such a deed, at the especial time it occurred--the eve of the
+Squire's wedding.
+
+When the evidence had been gathered--it was scant enough at best, and
+sadly damaging,--the case was presented to the jury by the speakers on
+each side, with facts so skilfully juggled, now and then, that an
+impartial listener would scarcely know how to place them aright.
+
+Sometimes flowery rhetorical effects were used where facts were few,
+that words might count instead, until there seemed never to have lived
+so just, upright and beloved a man as the squire, or so damnable and
+blood-thirsty a villain as his nephew.
+
+Sally came to court each day, along with Sophronia and her father. The
+three sat anxiously throughout the trial, hopeful and despondent by
+turns, as the prisoner was upheld or denounced, one hearer, at least,
+never wavering in the belief of his innocence from beginning to end.
+
+Late one afternoon the case was finished and submitted to the jury, but
+scarcely a soul quitted the courtroom, so deep an interest was felt,
+each one remaining, impatiently waiting for the verdict, which might
+come early or late, no man knew.
+
+When the doors had closed upon the retiring jury, the Judge picked up a
+newspaper on his desk, and leaning back in his chair began to read,
+while Sally, noting the act, wondered within herself how one could seem
+so calm and indifferent, when a man's very life hung trembling in the
+scales of justice. Her own brain was in a whirl of excitement and
+anxiety. She was scarcely able to think connectedly, and to her narrowed
+range of thought it seemed the very world must pause in anxiety while so
+weighty a matter was in the balance.
+
+The afternoon grew on apace. The dull gray shadows within the corners of
+the courtroom deepened and spread until the rows of expectant faces
+became a blurred and indistinct mass, except where the bands of light,
+falling through the windows, gave them a certain ashen pallor.
+
+Once or twice Mr. Saunders moved uneasily in his seat. He knew it was
+growing late, with many things at home demanding his attention--the
+stock to be fed, the horses watered, the night's chores to be done--yet
+he felt he could not pull himself away until he had heard some message
+from the jury room, either of good or evil.
+
+The others waited, too. A vague hum of voices talking in low undertones
+gradually overcame the quiet that had fallen on the waiting crowd, and
+from time to time anxious and impatient glances were shot toward the
+closed doors, through which the jury were to come.
+
+The gray evening shadows without, presaging the approach of night,
+perhaps the prisoner's doom, silently crept into the room, mingling with
+the gloomier shadows within the building. Presently the janitor came and
+lighted some ill-smelling lamps, one upon the Judge's desk, the others
+clinging to the grimy walls, and soon these lights began to struggle
+through the smoky chimneys, striving against the deepening shadows in
+unequal battle, as the good frequently combats with the evil in our
+natures.
+
+At last, after interminable hours of suspense, it seemed to the waiting
+girl, the slow tramp--tramp--of the jury down the stairway from the
+room above, struck her expectant ear like the doleful tread of a funeral
+procession. Nearer and nearer came the sound, then the courtroom doors
+were thrown open, and the twelve men entered, two by two, and quietly
+took their places in the jury box.
+
+The Judge had laid aside his paper, and was leaning attentively on the
+desk, while every neck was craned forward in eager expectancy. A
+profound hush fell, and each ear was bent to hear the verdict, whose
+grave import many already guessed. Those in the rear of the room were
+tiptoeing and peering anxiously over the heads of the ones in front,
+while a few who had been waiting on the outside of the building now
+hurried in and pressed quickly forward.
+
+Sally sat immovable, her hands clenched tightly in an agony of cruel
+suspense, her heart-throbs sounding in her ears like funeral bells, her
+face immobile as stone. She had given one swift, piercing look toward
+the jury as they entered, as if to read in advance the verdict they had
+brought, and the grave, stern faces she saw froze her very heart with
+the dire import of that verdict. From the jury her eyes had centered on
+the prisoner, who had lifted his head, and was calmly awaiting the words
+that were to give him freedom, or--he dared not think further--life had
+suddenly grown very sweet to him.
+
+The clear voice of the judge broke in upon the profound silence that had
+fallen on the entrance of the jury:
+
+"Gentlemen, have you found a verdict?"
+
+"We have," the foreman answered.
+
+"The Court is ready to hear it."
+
+The foreman stepped forward, and, clearing his throat, began to speak:
+"Your Honor we, the jury, find the prisoner is"--
+
+A slight commotion made itself manifest at the door of the courtroom.
+The judge cast an inquiring glance in its direction, and rapping sharply
+on his desk cried out:
+
+"Silence in Court!"
+
+The noise increased. A voice was heard calling, "Hold! Hold!"
+
+At the sound, Sophronia turned quickly and looked in the direction
+whence it came. Billy West was calling out, and pressing through the
+crowd, holding aloft a legal-looking document which he waved excitedly
+toward the judge.
+
+"Hold, your Honor!" he cried again. "Stay the proceedings of the Court!
+An innocent man is on trial! I have here a sworn confession from the one
+who killed Squire Bixler. It was Steve Judson. Steve was shot about noon
+to-day by Jade Beddow, who was also killed in the fight. Steve sent for
+me to come an' bring a notary public along.
+
+"Here is Steve's dyin' statement. Squire Bixler owed him some money and
+refused to pay it. Steve went to his house that night to collect it, and
+in a quarrel that followed, he stabbed the Squire. Milton Derr had
+nothin' to do with the crime. He's innocent!"
+
+The excited messenger strode forward and thrust the paper he carried
+into the outstretched hand of the Judge. A wave of surprise swept over
+the courtroom, and the murmur of voices grew louder until it finally
+broke into a loud cheer of victory for the prisoner.
+
+After the introduction of this new testimony, the jury promptly retired,
+and in a few moments brought in a verdict of "Not guilty."
+
+In all the confusion that arose with the clamor of many voices around
+him, Milton Derr seemed to hear but one faint voice close to his ear, to
+feel the pressure of one gentle hand alone, to look into but one pair of
+tender, truthful eyes--all the rest was but a blurred and indistinct
+memory.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI.
+
+Ten Years After
+
+
+"Sally, those awful Night Riders are around again."
+
+"No, Milt, you don't really mean it?"
+
+Sally looked up quickly from her sewing across the hearth to where her
+stalwart husband sat with crossed legs, making of his swinging right
+foot a make-believe skittish horse for Milton, junior, age three.
+
+"Father, what does Night Riders mean?" asked a young girl of nine or ten
+standing near, who had her mother's fair complexion and richly tinted
+hair, but her father's dark and expressive eyes.
+
+"They are men who band together and ride through the country at night
+for the purpose of forcing people to do certain things that the band
+demands. The members usually go masked so that they may not be
+recognized."
+
+"Then they must be wicked men," continued Alice frankly, "if they are so
+afraid they will be seen. Did you ever see a Night Rider, father?"
+
+"A long time ago," answered Milt soberly, but with a mischievous twinkle
+in his eye as he glanced across at his wife, "and he was a pretty sorry
+sight, I must say."
+
+"Has ma seen one, too?" persisted Alice, with the insistence of
+childhood.
+
+"Yes, dear, when I was a girl and lived with your grandma before she
+died, at a toll-gate just down the road apiece, I saw a Night Rider
+then."
+
+"What was he like?" questioned Alice, deeply interested, "Was he scary
+looking?"
+
+"No," said her mother hesitatingly, "I thought him rather good-looking
+at the time," and she smiled over at her husband.
+
+"Was he as good-looking as father?" asked Alice, following the glance
+with her keen young eyes.
+
+"Nothing like," affirmed Sally emphatically, and then she and Milt both
+laughed.
+
+"What are the Night Riders after now?" she inquired some time later,
+after the children had gone to bed, and the two sat talking by the fire.
+"There are no more toll-gates to be raided."
+
+"It's the tobacco question now, instead of free roads, and it's becoming
+a very serious one."
+
+"I knew that in some parts of the old Blue Grass State the tobacco
+growers were having considerable trouble, but I hadn't heard that
+mischief was brewing in this quarter."
+
+"Yes, the trouble is spreading generally throughout the tobacco growing
+regions of the State. Successful raids have been made on several cities
+and towns, and the large independent warehouses burned; buyers for some
+of these houses have been severely whipped, and in some cases ordered to
+leave the State. Troops have been ordered to several points to protect
+property and maintain order, and the Governor has been called upon to
+suppress the lawlessness that is abroad."
+
+"Why, this is worse than during the toll-gate troubles," said Sally.
+
+"Much worse," assented her husband. "The loss of property is very much
+greater. Barns have been burned filled with tobacco, and hundreds of
+plant beds scraped, and a promise is being exacted from the growers not
+to produce a crop this present season. It's a sort of triangular war in
+which the grasping Trust--the pooled Tobacco Association and the
+Independent growers, all figure," added Milt.
+
+"And have you agreed to pool your tobacco?" asked Sally, when the
+serious situation had been more fully discussed.
+
+"No, I think I have the right to dispose of it as I see fit. I am a free
+man, and live in a free country, and I don't intend to be coerced. I
+have sold my last year's crop to an independent buyer, and will begin
+delivering it sometime within the next few days."
+
+"I hope there'll be no trouble over it if you do," said his wife
+earnestly. "I have had quite enough experience along the line of night
+riding to last me for several years to come."
+
+"I scarcely think any attempt will be made to intimidate _me_" asserted
+Milt confidently. "In some places threatening letters and warnings have
+been sent to persons who have fallen under the displeasure of the band,
+but nothing of the kind has occurred about here."
+
+"Don't you think it would have been a wise plan to let the growing of
+tobacco alone until these troubles are settled?" inquired his wife.
+
+"No, I do not. They are trying to force the farmer to cut out his crop
+of tobacco this year, but--as I have said before--this is a free
+country, and it seems to me a man should be allowed to grow what he
+chooses on his own land."
+
+"It would seem so, and yet when to do this is to invite trouble, it
+appears to me that the wisest thing would be to leave the matter alone."
+
+"I hate to be driven against my will," argued Milt. "I have set out to
+raise a crop of tobacco this season, and I don't want to back down. That
+is why I have put my plant bed in the garden near the house, so I can
+protect it, if necessary. I think, though, there need be no uneasiness
+along this line."
+
+The next morning on going to his barn, Milton Derr found tied to the
+barn-door a bundle of switches and a crudely written note to which was
+fastened some matches and a cartridge.
+
+[Illustration: DERR FOUND A BUNDLE OF SWITCHES AND A CRUDE NOTE ON HIS
+TOBACCO BARN DOOR.]
+
+The note ran as follows:
+
+"Milt derr, you'r bein watched, we have an eye on you, we hear you air
+goin' to turn dumper an' sell yore crop to independents, also air fixin'
+to raise another crop. Better not, these three things air for sech as
+you. Yore weed may go up in smoke before it's ready for the pipe. Go
+slow.                N. R."
+
+Milton Derr slowly read over this illiterate note some two or three
+times before he seemed to gather its full meaning, then he carefully
+folded it up and put it in his pocket. Surely someone must be trying to
+play a practical joke on him by sending such a communication as this,
+and yet, taking into consideration the numerous rumors of happenings in
+other localities, this ill-spelled epistle possessed all the ear marks
+of a genuine note of warning from the terrible Night Riders.
+
+"I must keep this from Sally," he muttered, "at least until I can get my
+tobacco safely delivered, and it's up to me to deliver it at once,
+before the Night Riders conclude to pay me a visit, as this note
+intimates they may do in the near future."
+
+"Sally was not so far from wrong after all, when she said trouble would
+come of this," he added. "When once I can get my crop safely delivered
+and out of my barn, there is little further danger to apprehend."
+
+Acting on this supposition, Milt immediately after breakfast began
+preparations for removing his crop, and with the aid of two hired men
+was ready by noon to start for the point of delivery some miles distant,
+telling his wife that he would return sometime during the night.
+
+After supper Sally sat down to do some mending, and among other things
+to fix the pocket-linings of the coat her husband had laid aside for a
+heavier one during his long drive, and this note of warning, which he
+intended to keep from her knowledge for the present was the first thing
+she came across during her self-imposed task.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII.
+
+
+On reading the threatening anonymous missive which her husband had put
+in his pocket and forgot to change to his other coat, Sally quickly
+found food for disquieting thoughts. What if the Night Riders should
+learn that he was away delivering his tobacco, and were to come during
+his absence? Still, if they intended coming, she hoped that it might be
+on this special night while her husband was away from home. She did not
+fear for herself but only on his account.
+
+Then she fell to wondering when her husband had received this
+warning--there was no date on the note from which to learn. Milt had
+made no mention of its receipt, even when he was talking about the
+Riders to her the night before. This silence on his part, and the fact
+that he had so suddenly decided on delivering his tobacco at once, won
+her to the belief that the threat was a thing of very recent
+occurrence, perhaps of the past few hours, and that to it was due his
+present haste to get his barn empty before any unwelcome nocturnal visit
+should be made.
+
+Suppose the Riders had spies out, and were aware of the fact that her
+husband was even then delivering his crop to independent buyers, and
+should try to capture him on his way home. A great uneasiness took
+possession of her at this thought, and after several futile attempts at
+sewing, she finally let the garment drop to the floor, and with clasped
+hands sat staring intently into the fire, and listening anxiously for
+some sound betokening her husband's return. Every now and then she went
+to the front door, and looked anxiously out. The early spring night was
+crisp and cool and the stars shone brightly. Each time there was no
+disturbing sound to mar the deep stillness that greeted her, and after
+listening awhile, she went again within doors and sat down by the fire.
+
+The night slowly wore on as she sat there listening, almost in the same
+spot where the Squire had sat ten or twelve years before, as he, too,
+listened anxiously to hear the approaching hoofbeats that would advise
+him the Night Riders were on their way to attack the New Pike Gate, and
+that the desired capture of his nephew was but a matter of brief delay.
+
+On the third or fourth trip to the front door, Sally heard the sound of
+approaching horses, not the ones that Milton and his men had used for
+the hauling of the tobacco, but a small cavalcade, coming rapidly down
+the road. There was a certain familiar ring of the iron shoe on the hard
+surface of the pike, that struck a sudden key-note of fear in her bosom
+as she listened. She remembered that ominous sound as she rode alone to
+the old stone quarry the night that Milt was put on trial as a traitor.
+Perhaps the band was still inclined to look upon him as one, although
+the evil influence of Jade Beddow was no longer to be feared.
+
+Sally found herself mentally tracing the approach of the cavalcade along
+the public highway from the direction of the hill country whence it
+came. Now the horsemen were galloping along a level stretch of road
+some distance away, then there was a curve and the sound diminished, and
+presently almost died away as a deep cut in a hillside was reached.
+
+Again it grew clearly distinct, increasing as the horsemen drew nearer
+the avenue gate. Would they pass on by? The listener fervently hoped
+that this might be the case, but no, close upon the hope, there was a
+brief cessation of hoofbeats, then she heard the click of the avenue
+gate-latch as the cavalcade came through. The Night Riders were again a
+thing of actual reality. Her first thought was one of thankfulness that
+Milt with his rash impetuous nature was not there to defy or enrage
+them, her second a regret at her own utter helplessness. She closed the
+door softly, locking it, and went into the room where she had been
+sitting. She remembered also to close the door between this room and the
+smaller one beyond, in which the children were soundly sleeping, then
+she stood still waiting.
+
+The subdued sound of horsemen coming down the avenue and circling around
+the house reached her acute ears, and soon upon this came a clear sharp
+"Hello!"
+
+[Illustration: THE TOBACCO NIGHT-RIDERS CALL ON MILT DERR.]
+
+She went slowly to the window, and raising it, partly opened a shutter
+and looked out.
+
+"What is wanted?" she asked.
+
+"We want Milt Derr. Tell him to come out."
+
+Sally was on the point of saying that her husband was not at home, when
+suddenly there flashed into her mind the thought that perhaps she might
+be able to pacify them and send they away before Milt should return.
+
+"What do you want of him?" she asked.
+
+"We want to talk over the tobacco question."
+
+As Sally glanced back into the room and saw Milt's coat lying on the
+floor where it had dropped from her idle fingers, a scheme quickly
+popped into her head that she resolved to put into execution.
+
+"All right!" she answered, "I will call him and have him dress and come
+out."
+
+Some minutes later the front door opened and the muffled figure of a
+young man in a large overcoat, and with a hat slouched over his face,
+stepped out into the starlight.
+
+"Show us your tobacco beds," a voice demanded.
+
+The figure nodded assent and went slowly in the direction of the garden,
+while several of the masked horsemen followed close upon its footsteps.
+
+When the garden-gate was opened, the figure silently pointed to a long
+white stretch of canvas running the length of the north boundary fence,
+and protected by it.
+
+"Tear off that canvas!" demanded the leader, and as the covering of thin
+cotton was stripped from the bed, two or three of the horsemen rode up
+and down it, crushing the young plants and grinding them into the
+yielding soil, then a portion of the frame of the bed was dragged the
+entire length of the bed, scraping from its surface whatever plants had
+escaped the trampling iron hoofs.
+
+When this had been accomplished, the torn canvas was gathered up by the
+horsemen, and the silent guide ordered to lead the way to the tobacco
+barn.
+
+On reaching it, two of the riders dismounted and went within, carrying
+the cloth with them, but soon they reappeared.
+
+[Illustration: DRESSED IN HER HUSBAND'S CLOTHES, SHE LED THEM TO THE
+TOBACCO BARN.]
+
+"The barn is empty, the tobacco has been removed," they announced to the
+leader.
+
+"Empty, is it?" he answered with an oath, "then fix it so it will not
+shelter another crop."
+
+The men went inside again, and soon a dull light began to glimmer
+through the cracks between the boards, rapidly growing in brightness as
+the flames began to fasten over the dry surface of the wooden framework,
+aided and fed by the tobacco sticks that were being piled like fagots
+high upon the spreading blaze. Short tongues of flame leaped upward, and
+crept out here and there along the blazing walls, while spirals of
+copper-colored smoke began to uncoil into the night like fiery serpents,
+scattering myriads of sparks in their trail.
+
+The scene began to light up weirdly, throwing a ruddy glow against the
+sky, and bringing into sharp relief the surrounding objects. The horses
+and their masked riders stood boldly out like statues of ebony from the
+background of bright light.
+
+"Boys, give the dumper twenty-five lashes!" cried the leader.
+
+The two men afoot, who had fired the barn, started toward the motionless
+figure that had looked on helplessly and silently, keeping as much in
+the shadow as possible. Almost at this moment a slight commotion was
+heard in the direction of the barn-lot gate, and several masked men came
+through the gateway, bringing with them a prisoner.
+
+"Here is the dumper who has sold his tobacco!" they cried. "He is just
+getting in from delivering it. We took him off the wagon just now."
+
+"What fellow is this?" demanded the leader looking in the direction of
+the shrinking figure the two riders were about to lay hold upon.
+
+Sally, throwing back the heavy coat and pulling the slouch hat from her
+head, answered:
+
+"It is I. A woman."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII.
+
+
+For a brief while only the crackle of the flames, eating their way
+through the dry oak framework of the barn, disturbed the silence that
+followed this unexpected declaration, then a murmur of surprise ran from
+horseman to horseman, while Milt broke into astonished speech:
+
+"Why, Sally, what are you doing dressed up in my clothes?"
+
+"My fear for you made me bold. I didn't want them to know you were away
+delivering your tobacco, for fear they would follow you, and so I tried
+to make them think I was you," she answered falteringly, and then, her
+courage ebbing low, woman-like she began to cry.
+
+Whether the sight of her tears, or the pluckiness of her attempt at
+passing off for her husband appealed the stronger to the leader of the
+Night Riders I cannot say, but the captain of the band turned suddenly
+to Milton Derr and said:
+
+"I think we have shown you in strong enough terms that we do not approve
+of the stand you have taken on this tobacco question, and have made it
+perfectly clear that there must be no more tobacco crop grown by you
+this coming season.
+
+"The crisis in the tobacco situation is near at hand. If all the growers
+will agree to control the production and pool their crops they can soon
+control the prices as well. It is such dumpers and renegades as you that
+have delayed the victory this long, but despite your stubbornness and
+the many difficulties you have helped to throw in the way, the victory
+will surely come, and the long down-trodden grower will conquer.
+
+"For the sake of your wife here, we are going to omit a part of the
+punishment you deserve, but I cannot promise as much if we have to pay
+you a future visit. To your horses boys!"
+
+The men afoot quickly vaulted into their saddles, the little cavalcade
+wheeled about and like shadows, horses and riders soon faded into the
+night, red-tinged with the glow of the burning building.
+
+[Illustration: "REVENGE IS SWEET!" SAID DERR. "NO, NO, MILT! YOU ARE
+UNHARMED, THAT IS ALL I ASK."]
+
+As the ring of hoofbeats grew fainter and fainter along the highway,
+Milton and Sally, hand in hand, stood watching the fire gradually die
+down, and the swarms of sparks grow less and less as they floated off
+into the darkness, then the two slowly went to the house.
+
+"The villains! I'd like to hang the last one of them!" cried Milt in a
+sudden outburst of wrath as the full extent of his losses dawned upon
+him.
+
+"Hush! Milt, I am more than satisfied that things are no worse,"
+answered his wife gratefully.
+
+"But my barn is burned and my plant bed destroyed!" exclaimed Milt.
+
+"You are unharmed, and that is all I ask."
+
+"I'd like to get even with them for this night's work, and I will," he
+announced vindictively.
+
+"No! no! Milt, you must do nothing of the kind," declared Sally. "Let
+the matter rest just where it is. Remember, you are looking from just
+the opposite standpoint from which you looked a few years back. It is
+now _your_ property that is being destroyed, and not other people's.
+This makes all the difference in the world. You must not be too severe
+on these Night Riders, for my sake, if for nothing else. You see," she
+added coyly, "I married one of them myself."
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
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+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+Transcriber's Notes
+
+Obvious punctuation errors repaired.
+
+The following words are spelled both with and without hyphens and have
+not been changed: "blood[-]thirsty", "fire[-]light", "half[-]tones",
+"hoof[-]beats", "look[-]out", "mid[-]hour", "to[-]day", "to-morrow",
+"to[-]night".
+
+Hyphens added: "toll[-]gate" (page 10), "toll[-]house" (page 18).
+
+Hyphens removed: "over[-]heard" (page 162).
+
+Page 55: "he" changed to "the" (the host suggested).
+
+Page 140: "chargin" changed to "chagrin" (The Squire's chagrin).
+
+Page 158: "Sophonia" changed to "Sophronia" (declared Sophronia
+frankly).
+
+Page 191: "latters'" changed to "latter's" (the latter's outstretched
+palm).
+
+Page 237: added "of" (worthy of your love).
+
+Page 242: "him" changed to "his" (she heard his retreating footsteps).
+
+Page 245: "vengence" changed to "vengeance" (to wreak his vengeance).
+
+Page 254: "dartardly" changed to "dastardly" (so dastardly deed).
+
+Page 255: "aserted" changed to "asserted" (persistently asserted Milton
+Derr's innocence).
+
+Page 290: "horsmen" changed to "horsemen" (subdued sound of horsemen).
+
+Page 293: "horseman" changed to "horsement" (several of the masked
+horsemen).
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Night Riders, by Henry C. Wood
+
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