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diff --git a/old/65555-0.txt b/old/65555-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 22cae77..0000000 --- a/old/65555-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,3670 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of Green Timber Thoroughbreds, by Theodore -Goodridge Roberts - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world 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. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: Green Timber Thoroughbreds - -Author: Theodore Goodridge Roberts - -Release Date: June 7, 2021 [eBook #65555] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -Produced by: Al Haines, John Routh & the online Distributed Proofreaders - Canada team at https://www.pgdpcanada.net. This file was - produced from images generously made available by Internet - Archive/Lending Library. - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GREEN TIMBER THOROUGHBREDS *** - - - - - - GREEN TIMBER - THOROUGHBREDS - - - -[Illustration] - - - - - GREEN TIMBER - THOROUGHBREDS - - - BY - THEODORE GOODRIDGE ROBERTS - - - GARDEN CITY NEW YORK - GARDEN CITY PUBLISHING CO., INC. - 1924 - - - - - COPYRIGHT, 1923, 1924, BY - DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY - - ALL RIGHTS RESERVED - - PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES - AT - THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N. Y. - - - - - CONTENTS - - CHAPTER - I. IN THE NICK OF TIME - II. JOE - III. THROW-BACKS - IV. THE DANGEROUS DANGLERS - V. THE GUARDED ROAD - VI. THE WARNING - VII. THE KNOCKOUT - VIII. THE RAID - IX. THE WAY OUT - X. DEEP TRAILS - XI. THE PURCHASE - XII. NO CHANCES - - Green Timber Thoroughbreds - - - - - CHAPTER I - - - IN THE NICK OF TIME - -Old Dave Hinch awoke with the bitter trickle of smoke in his nose; and -his first idea was that he must have fallen asleep with his pipe in his -mouth, lost his grip on it and set fire to his beard. That appendage, -and the whiskers and mustache which mingled with it, were dear to him; -and rightly so, for they covered everything of his face except his nose -and eyes and receding strip of brow. So he clapped a hand to his beard -even before he sat up, and opened his eyes. Beard and whiskers and -mustache were all there, and all right. Reassured on this point, yet -still distressingly conscious of the tang of smoke, he hoisted head and -shoulders from the pillow and opened his eyes. The room was in utter -darkness, for the blinds were down. With fumbling hands he struck a -match, and lit the lamp which stood on the chair beside the bed. Then he -saw something—the same thing that he had smelled—a thin, bluish haze -in the close and chilly air. - -Old Dave Hinch forgot all about his whiskers, and leapt out of bed with -an agility which belied their venerable hoariness. He slid his legs into -trousers and jammed his bare feet into boots and jumped to the door. He -snatched it open, admitting a stifling roll of smoke which instantly -enveloped him. He retreated, slithered across the bed and dived to the -nearest window. He tore town the blind, threw up the lower sash, and -thrust forth his head. - -Smoke oozed out past his shoulders into the cold starshine. He yelled -“Fire! Fire! Help! Help!” at the top of his voice until his throat -ached. He got no response. All his neighbors were sound asleep, of -course. - -He withdrew from the open window and saw the draft between door and -window had extinguished the narrow flame of the lamp. He stumbled and -fumbled his way to the door, through choking swirls of heavy smoke. He -sank to his hands and knees and looked down the narrow staircase with -smarting eyes. He saw a lurid, pulsing glow away down, behind swirling -depth of hot and acrid fumes, and whisperings and cracklings and a sound -like the snoring of many sleepers came up to his stricken ears. - -He crawled back to the window, and again set up his desperate outcry. -But all the inhabitants of Forkville were sound asleep. - -A stranger arrived at Forkville at 1:20 A.M., Tuesday, February the -tenth. He carried a light pack on his shoulders, and his snowshoes atop -the pack. The road was good. He topped a rise, rounded a sharp elbow of -second growth spruce and fir, and saw the covered bridge, the village -and the white fields laid out before him in the faint but enchanting -light of frosty stars. - -“It looks like an illustration for a fairy-story,” he said; and just -then he became aware of the fact that something seemed to be wrong with -the charming picture. The fault lay with the nearest house of the -village. Smoke arose from it, white as frosted breath, and lurid gleams -and glows wavered and flickered about its lower windows. He paused for a -few seconds, staring, strangely horrified by the sight and the thought -of a dwelling blazing unheeded and unsuspected in that scene of peace -and fairy beauty. Then he ran. He went flying down the short dip and -through the tunnel of the barn-like bridge, and, as he slackened his -pace on the rise beyond, he heard old Dave Hinch’s frantic yells. He -recognized the sound only as a human cry, for he did not know Hinch or -the voice of Hinch. He responded with an extra burst of speed—ignoring -the slope—and with a ringing shout. - -The stranger soon spotted the window from which the yells issued. A -minute later, by means of a ladder, he rescued the old man. - -Just then three of the villagers arrived on the scene. They had been -aroused from their slumber by the stranger’s shouts. They looked at -Dave, then at the stranger, then back at Dave. - -“Where’s Joe?” asked one of them. - -The old man’s lower jaw sagged. He pointed at a window, an upper window -of the main house. - -“Reckon Joe’s still abed,” he said. - -The neighbors swore. The stranger ran to the ladder, flopped it across -and along to the window indicated, cast off his pack, and ascended like -a sailor or a professional fireman. Upon reaching the window, he smashed -glass and thin wood with his double-clad fists. A thin reek of smoke -came out. He wound his scarf about his throat, pulled his fur cap down -over ears and eyes and went head first through the shattered window. -Down at the foot of the ladder, Dave Hinch cried out at sight of that -destruction, and one of his neighbors cursed him for a fool and worse. - -The stranger picked himself up from the floor of the dark room into -which he had plunged. He couldn’t see anything, and the air was deadly -with heat and smoke. He turned and kicked what little was left of the -window sash clear out of the frame. Turning again, he dropped on his -hands and knees, and went in search of the bed and the unfortunate Joe. -The bare floor was warm. He found the bed almost immediately by bumping -his head against the wooden side of it. He got to his feet, reached over -and felt a human figure in the bed. He pulled it toward him, sheets, -blankets, and all, clutched it to his laboring breast and made for the -window. He was thankful that Joe was a lightweight. He found one of the -natives at the top of the ladder and passed his unconscious burden out -to him. - -“Here he is,” he shouted. “Dead, I shouldn’t wonder. Asphyxiated for -sure. Take him home. Get a doctor.” - -He leaned far out the window, gasping for clean air. As soon as the -ladder was clear he slid to the snowy ground, recovered his pack and -snowshoes, reeled and fell, then crawled dizzily away from the burning -house in which he had lost all interest for the moment. - -The stranger crawled to the high road, turned there and looked back at -the scene of his humane and disinterested exploits. He saw that the -house was fated. All the lower windows within his field of vision -belched smoke and flames. The ell from which the old man had escaped was -blazing to the eaves. There was no wind, and the smoke went straight up. -A dozen or more people now ran aimlessly about in the glare, or stood in -helpless groups. The old man’s voice still rang above the roaring and -snapping of the fire, cracked and raspy. No one paid any attention to -the man who had performed the rescue. - -The stranger moved up the road, glancing right or left at each house as -he came to it. The village was of the simplest possible design—two -lines of dwellings and stores and snow-drifted front yards facing one -another across the white high road. Behind the houses and stores on both -hands were barns and sheds, a few white-topped stacks of straw, and -snowy fields climbing up to the edges of black forest. - -The stranger had not gone more than halfway through the village when he -spotted the thing he was looking for, and turned to his left off the -road. This was a building two and a half stories high, square, hooded in -front with a narrow veranda and an upper gallery, and flanked on the -right with an impressive extent of attached sheds and stables—all in -need of paint. By these physical features, and by its general aid of -rakish unconcern of public opinion, it proclaimed itself the village -hotel. The stranger stepped up onto the worn flooring of the veranda, -which snapped frostily to his tread. He saw, dimly, antlered heads of -moose and caribou on his right and left, out-thrust from the clapboarded -walls, as if the monarchs of forest and barren had been imprisoned in -the house and were now making their escape without wasting any time in -looking for the door. He was not intimidated, for he had seen the same -style of decoration in this province before. He crossed the veranda, and -hammered on the door with his mittened fist. The door opened in half a -minute, disclosing a tall man with a blanket draped about his shoulders, -a lamp in his hand and a stoop in his back. - -“What’s all the row?” asked the man of the house. “I heared hollerin’, -didn’t I? Or was I dreamin’?” - -“You weren’t dreaming,” replied the stranger. “There’s a house a-fire, -down near the bridge. Have you a room for me?” - -“You don’t say so! Whose house?” - -“I don’t know. I’m a stranger here. Good-sized white house with an ell, -first on your right heading this way from the bridge.” - -“Old Dave Hinch’s!” cried the other exultantly. “Hope it catches Dave -himself, darn his measly hide! But step inside, mister, an’ shut the -door. I’ll go git into some pants an’ things.” - -The man with the lamp went swiftly up a flight of uncarpeted stairs, -with the stranger at his heels. He entered a bedroom; and the stranger -was still with him. He dropped the blanket and dressed with amazing -speed. - -“You won’t be in time to save it,” said the stranger. “The whole ground -floor is a-fire and roaring. A chemical engine couldn’t save it now.” - -“Save it! I don’t want to save nothin’. I want to watch it burn. But -say—did you hear anything about Joe? Did Joe git out?” - -“Yes, I got Joe out myself—unconscious. And the old man, too—but he -was all right.” - -“The old man! You went an’ got him out? Hell! Say, it’s easy to see -you’re a stranger round these parts, mister. Well, I’m goin’, anyhow. -Maybe I’ll git a chance to push him back into it.” - -“But what about a room for me?” - -“A room? Sure you can have a room. You’ll find plenty right on this -floor. Help yerself. Here, you can have the lamp. See you later.” - -He thrust the lamp into the other’s hand, fumbled his way down the dark -stairs, and dashed from the house. - -The first room into which the stranger looked, shading the lamp with his -left hand, was already occupied by someone who snored in a high and -rasping key; the second was occupied by someone who instantly inquired -“Who’s that?” in a feminine voice; but the third was empty. It was also -cold and large and dreary. He examined it carefully by the feeble light -of the smoky little lamp, and came to the conclusion that it was a room -of state, a chamber of pride. There were white curtains looped at the -windows, with dust in their chilly folds. There was a carpet on the -floor with a design in yellow and red which seemed to jump up at you and -wriggle. There were several chairs of several designs and shapes, all -upholstered in wine-red plush. There was a small center-table with a -marble top and walnut legs, and on it stood a tall vase full of dusty -paper flowers. There were several framed pictures on the walls. There -was a bed with a high headboard of glistening yellow wood. There was a -little open-faced stove of iron and nickel. Its open face was filled by -a large, dusty fan of pea-green paper. Beside it stood a dusty basket -full of short, dusty sticks of rock-maple. - -The stranger set the lamp on the center-table, lowered his pack and -snowshoes to the carpet, cast off his mittens and muffler and cap and -went over and gave the bed a second and closer inspection. He removed -the lace-edged pillow sham, which was coated with dust. He shook up the -pillows and turned them over, then opened up the bedding for inspection -and airing. Returning to the stove, he started a fire with the help of -the paper fan and paper flowers. The dry maple caught and flamed as if -by magic. He discarded several outer articles of clothing, pulled one of -the fat chairs up to the stove, and slumped into it; filled and lit his -pipe. And thus the tall man with the stoop found him half an hour later. - -“Here you be,” said the man of the house, with a grin. “You chose a good -one, that’s sure.” - -“The first one I came to that wasn’t already taken,” replied the -stranger. “How’s the fire? Hope you didn’t carry out your murderous -intentions.” - -“Didn’t carry out a danged thing. The roof’s fell in. And say, if you -want to see a man real mad you’d ought to see Dave Hinch. I’d of paid -five dollars for the show if it wasn’t free. But about this room, -mister. To-night don’t count, for I ain’t such a hell of a business man -as all that—but if you stop in it it’ll set you back one dollar an’ -fifty cents a day, or nine dollars by the week.” - -“Pretty good rent for a room in the country, isn’t it?” - -“Rent? Well, I throw in three or four meals a day.” - -“In that case, consider me as a fixture for weeks and weeks.” - -“That suits me, mister—but what’s your name?” - -“Vane,” answered the stranger. - -“Vane,” returned the other. “Then you’re not from hereabouts, mister?” - -“I’m from New York—and other places.” - -“That so? Well, I reckon I’ve read it in the newspaper. My name’s Jard -Hassock, an’ I’m the proprietor of this here hotel, which is known far -an’ wide as Moosehead House.” He pulled up a chair and sat down, then -leaned over confidentially. “Maybe you’ve seen Strawberry Lightnin’?” he -queried. - -“No—but I have heard of her,” returned Vane. - -“I bred her,” said Hassock with a rapt look in his eyes. “Bred her, -owned her an’ trained her. And the Willy Horse! He was her sire—I owned -him, too. His dam died when he was only four days old, an’ I got him -cheap an’ raised him on a bottle. He was the best horse ever bred in -this province, an’ then some! Sold for twenty thousand—but that wasn’t -the time I sold him. Oh, no! Four hundred was the price I got. Can you -beat it?” - -“Sounds tough. I’ve heard of the Willy Horse, too.” - -“He was a wonder! But I didn’t have the chance to try him out like I did -the mare. She was good! Her mother was a little bit of speed I got in a -trade up to Woodstock. She was sure a winner, that Strawberry Lightnin’! -I raced her two years, an’ then I sold her for a thousand. Had to do it. -It ain’t the money you make that counts in that game, but the money you -spend. I’m content to live quiet enough here in Forkville, but when I’m -racin’, an’ away from home an’ the like of that, mister, the Derby -winner couldn’t keep my pockets full a week.” - -Vane yawned and quickly apologized for it. - -“Guess I’d best be goin’,” said Hassock, rising slowly to his feet. - -“I’m sleepy, I must admit,” returned Vane. “Out all day in the fresh -air, you know.” - - - - - CHAPTER II - - - JOE - -After a deep and dreamless sleep of seven hours, Vane opened his eyes -and beheld Jard Hassock standing beside his bed. - -“Mister, you’re a wonder!” exclaimed Jard. “I didn’t get it all last -night, we was that busy runnin’ round pertendin’ we was tryin’ to put -out the fire, jist to fool old Dave—but Tom McPhee’s been here this -mornin’. What d’ye say to ham an’ aigs an’ hot biscuits?” - -“In ten minutes I’ll show you,” replied Vane, sitting up. - -“Now you stop right where you are,” returned the other. “I’m fetchin’ it -on a tray—an’ proud to do it! Say, Tom’s told me all about how you -flopped that ladder over an’ skun up an’ div head first through that -window! It was Tom McPhee you passed Joe out to. A cool head an’ a cool -hand, mister—an’ them’s things I admire. Tea or coffee?” - -“It was easy,” said Vane. “There was no danger. How’s Joe?” - -“Fine an’ dandy this mornin’, but ten minutes more of the smoke would of -done the trick, the doctor says. Did you say coffee, or tea?” - -“Coffee, if it’s the same to you, thanks very much.” - -Hassock went, but was back in ten minutes with a large tray loaded to -capacity. Later he even fetched a pail of hot water, then returned to -the kitchen, leaving Vane to his own devices. He sat down in a -splint-bottomed chair close to the kitchen stove, and lit his pipe. - -“It’s him,” he said to his sister. “He’s the very identical lad we heard -about who stopped a week at Wilson’s camp an’ washed himself all over in -the little rubber bathtub you could fold up an’ put in your pocket. It’s -him. I kinder guessed it last night. His name’s Vane.” - -“Well, there’s no harm in a bath,” replied Miss Hassock. “A good wash -all over never hurt anyone, that I’ve ever heard tell of.” - -“But three in one week, Liza!” - -“Well, what of it, so long’s he had the time an’ didn’t catch cold? Now -if it was only summer time an’ the pump was workin’ an’ the pipes wasn’t -all froze up, he could use the bathroom.” - -“If he sees it he’ll maybe stop till summer time jist to try it out.” - -“Maybe. What’s brought him to Forkville, anyhow?” - -“You ask him, Liza. I’d like fine to know. Whatever brought him, he come -jist in time for Joe Hinch, that’s a sure thing. He’s a cool hand, -whatever he’s after; an’ he knows how many beans makes five, I reckon.” - -“What was he doin’ out to Wilson’s camp?” - -“Snoopin’ ’round in the woods all day an’ swappin’ yarns with the boys -at night, that’s all, far’s I ever heard. He paid for his grub.” - -Jard Hassock was a bachelor and Liza was a spinster. Liza was tall, -large-boned and large-featured, square-shouldered, mannish looking and -ten years Jard’s senior—sixty years of age, if a day. She was -straighter than Jard, who suffered from a chronic rheumatic crick in the -back. She was level-headed, extraordinarily capable—and extraordinarily -soft-hearted. She could do anything outdoors or in, from plowing sod to -whipping cream, and do it right. Her hand was light and sure at the -cooking, and light and sure on a horse’s mouth. Her knowledge of horses -was as great as Jard’s, and her ways with them were as wise as his, but -she never said so, and he never thought so. Jard didn’t know that she -was his guardian and his manager; he didn’t realize that he would have -been cheated out of his very boots years ago but for her; but other -people knew these things and stood in awe of her. - -Vane appeared in the kitchen a few minutes later. He bowed to Miss -Hassock, and thanked her for the breakfast, making special mention of -the coffee. Jard had his eyes on Liza, though she was not aware of it. -That was the way with Jard. One either did not feel his glance or did -not heed it, for it never suggested a search for anything more important -than a humorous point of view or intention. A great joker was Jard -Hassock in his own dry way; but the fact is that he looked at life and -people for many things beside jokes and could see them as quickly and as -far as the next man. And now he saw that Liza was pleased with the -stranger. - -“I’ll go fetch my pipe, an’ then I’ll show you around outside,” he said -to the guest, and presently they were sauntering in the direction of the -stables. Here were six open stalls on one side of the floor and two box -stalls and a room devoted to harness and oat bins on the other. Only two -open stalls and one box stall were occupied. - -“There was a time when I had two work teams an’ a roadster, an’ a bit of -speed in every box,” said Jard. “But I’ve cut down the farmin’ of late, -an’ I’ve quit breedin’ an’ racin’ altogether. Twice stung, once -shy—that’s me.” - -Vane murmured something sympathetic, and examined the two medium-sized, -elderly farm beasts in the stalls with polite interest, patting their -noses, laying a finger here and there, shooting quick glances at their -legs. Not a glance or movement of this escaped Jard, who watched him -with a twinkle in one eye and a probe in the other. - -“Very useful,” was the stranger’s comment. - -Jard nodded and crossed the floor and opened the upper wing of the door -of one of the boxes. - -“Look a-heer at something different,” he said. “Lady Firefly.” - -Vane joined him and looked into the roomy, well lighted box. A roan -filly turned and thrust a silken muzzle into Jard’s face, then into his -hand. - -“Some speed, there, I wouldn’t wonder,” continued Hassock. - -“I shouldn’t wonder,” replied Vane. “How old is she?” - -“Sixteen months. She’s a granddaughter of the Willy Horse’s sister—or -maybe it was his half-sister. You can’t get much information out of old -Luke Dangler. You said you’d heard tell of the Willy Horse, didn’t you?” - -“Yes.” - -“Well, this here’s the same strain. There was an English mare come to -this country a hundred years ago. Her name was Willoughby Girl. Ever -hear of her?” - -“Yes, I have heard of Willoughby Girl,” said Vane quietly. - -Jard Hassock leaned nearer to the stranger, shoulder to shoulder. - -“There’s her blood in this here filly,” he whispered. “I’ll tell you -about it. It’s a queer story, an’ a bit of history—— Hark!” he said. -“Was that Liza hollerin’?” - -It was Liza, beyond a doubt; and Jard left the stable to see what she -wanted of him. He was back in half a minute. - -“It’s Joe Hinch come over from McPhee’s to thank you for the good work -you done last night,” he informed Vane. - -“That was nothing,” said Vane. “I just happened to be -Johnny-on-the-spot, that’s all.” - -“You best come along in with me, anyhow,” returned Jard. “It’ll be best -for you an’ best for me, mister—for Liza told me to fetch you.” - -Vane went. In the big kitchen they found Miss Hassock and a young woman. -Vane doffed his cap and glanced around, but failed to see anything of -the lad he had dragged out of bed. His glance returned inquiringly to -the faces of Liza and the young woman. - -“Joe, this is the gent who saved your precious life last night,” said -Jard. “Meet Mr. Vane.” - -The stranger was a man of breeding, and a man of the world to boot—but -Jard’s words threw him off his mental balance into a spiritual and -mental fog, and left him there. Again he sent a searching glance into -the corners of the room and even behind the stove in quest of Joe. He -didn’t move anything but his eyes. He didn’t say a word. His baffled -glance returned to the young woman. Again his eyes met hers, again she -smiled faintly, and now she blushed. She was moving toward him; and this -she continued to do until she was within two feet of him. She extended a -hand, which he took and held, acting by instinct rather than by reason. -She lowered her glance. - -“I thank you—very, very much,” she said somewhat breathlessly. “It was -very—kind of you—and brave.” - -“I—don’t mention it, but——” - -“She’s Joe,” said Miss Hassock, suddenly enlightened. - -“The one you drug out of bed,” said Jard. - -“Josephine,” whispered the young woman, bowing her head yet lower and -gently attempting to withdraw her hand. - -Vane saw it. It dawned on him. The blood crawled up beyond his neck -again and fed his brain, and the fog melted away. - -“Ah!—of course,” he said. “It was you. I am glad.” - -He bowed and gently released her hand. She murmured a few more words of -gratitude, then slipped away. - -“Why wouldn’t she stop to dinner?” asked Jard of his sister. “I asked -her to often enough and hearty enough; an’ even if I hadn’t, I guess she -knows she’s always welcome here.” - -“She’s only twenty-three, that’s why,” returned Miss Hassock. “If she -was my age she’d of stopped.” - -“Twenty-three? Well, reckon she is—but what’s her age got to do with -stoppin’ here to dinner?” demanded Jard. - -“All her own clothes got burnt up,” replied Liza. “They weren’t many nor -much, but they fitted her to a wish, for she made every stitch herself, -outside an’ inside. What she has on this mornin’ belongs to Susan -McPhee, who’s near as tall as me an’ bigger round everywheres.” - -“I get you,” said Jard. “That’s the woman of her! A queen in one skirt -an’ a scart rabbit in another! But she looked all right to me. Didn’t -she look all right, Mr. Vane?” - -“Very charming, I thought,” replied Vane. - -“Better’n you expected, hey?” - -“Yes. I had no idea, no suspicion, of the truth.” - -“What did you cal’late this Joe was, anyhow?” - -“A stable-boy, or something of that sort. A quite natural mistake, under -the circumstances.” - -“It don’t sound to me like a mistake a gentleman would make. The -prettiest girl on this river—the prettiest girl I ever see—that’s Joe -Hinch; an’ you grab her out of bed an’ pass her through the window an’ -think she’s a stable-boy!” - -“What of it? I couldn’t see!” retorted Vane. - -Jard wagged his head. - -[Illustration] - - - - - CHAPTER III - - - THROW-BACKS - -“There’s throw-backs in folks jist like in horses,” said the proprietor -of Moosehead House, seating himself close to the kitchen stove and -waving his guest to a rocking chair. “An’ that girl, Joe Hinch, is a -throw-back—an’ a long throw—clear beyond my memory, anyhow. She’s got -more than looks—more of some other things than she has of looks—an’ -you know what she looks like! That’s sayin’ somethin’ would crack a -stiff jaw, hey? Well, it’s the truth! She’s got brains, an’ she’s got -speerit—and she’s got honesty! The Lord only knows where she got that. -That’s where the long throw comes in. She’s an orphant. But she’s got -the worst two old grandpas you could find if you hunted a week. I’ll bet -a dollar there ain’t a worse pair of grandpas in the whole province, or -maybe not in the whole country, when it comes to sheer downright -cussedness an’ crookedness. Ain’t that right, Liza?” - -“I guess so,” replied Miss Hassock, but Vane saw and felt that she had -given no consideration to her brother’s question. - -“Sure it’s right!” continued Jard, with relish. “Old Dave Hinch an’ old -Luke Dangler! There’s a pair of hellyuns you wouldn’t have the heart to -wish onto your worst enemy for grandpas. Dave’s mean an’ crooked an’ a -coward. Luke’s mean an’ crooked an crazy—but he ain’t afeared of -anything nor anybody. Now with horses an’ horned cattle the top-crosses -is the things to look at an’ consider in their pedigrees; an’ so it -should be with humans, and usually is—but there’s throw-backs in both, -now an’ then. There must surely be some fine strains in Joe’s pedigree, -but an all-fired long ways back. The Danglers have speerit an’ looks, -right enough, but I’m referrin’ to honesty. Why, the biggest bit of -thievery ever done in this province—the slickest an’ coolest an’ -sassiest ever pulled off without benefit of lawyers—was done by her -great-grandpa, old Luke’s own pa, one hundred years ago. That fetches me -right around to what I was tellin’ you in the stable about how this -strain of blood got into this country. Now that’s queer—talkin’ of -throw-backs—for the Willy Horse was one jist as certain as Joe Hinch is -one. He throwed clear back to that English mare, he did. He was the dead -spit, the livin’ image, of the English mare Luke Dangler’s pa stole an’ -hid in the year eighteen hundred an’ twenty-three. His name was -Mark—Mark Dangler—but they tell how the Injuns named him -Devil-kill-a-man-quick, an’ he was most generally called Devil Dangler -for short by whites an’ Injuns. That was Luke’s own pa. He was a handy -man with a knife. He could throw a knife that quick that——” - -“Jard!” exclaimed Miss Hassock. “If that old Dangler ever threw knives -half as fast as you wag your tongue he’d of killed off all the settlers -on the river in half a day. That story will keep, Jard—though I don’t -say this gentleman won’t be interested in it.” - -“You are right, I’m interested in it,” replied Vane. “In fact, what I -really came here for”—and here Jard looked up expectantly—“was in the -hope of finding a good young horse of the Eclipse strain of blood. -Willoughby Girl, that stolen mare—whose story I’ve known for a very -long time—was a grandfather of the great Eclipse. She was a bay with -white legs. Eclipse was also a bay with white legs. But her dam, -Getaway, was a strawberry roan. So the color of your filly looks -good—but bay is the true Eclipse color. The mare, Willoughby Girl, was -ten years old when she was brought to this country. - -“An Englishman named Willoughby was her owner. When he came out to this -province with the intention of buying land and settling here, he brought -Willoughby Girl with him, for she was the greatest mare in the world, in -his opinion. The loss of her sickened him of the country. He spent -thousands of pounds in searching for her. It was his belief that she had -been run across the border, so it was in the states that he did all his -searching.” - -Jard was staring in open-eyed amazement at all this knowledge—so much -clearer even than his own—but Vane seemed to take it as a matter of -course and went right on. - -“I have always been interested in this story of Willoughby Girl, and -then I came across the records of Strawberry Lightning and the Willy -Horse. Later on I saw both of them at different tracks—you see I am -keen on horses, anyway—and heard a vague story about a stolen English -mare that was their ancestor. As you say, the Willy Horse was a direct -throw-back. I discovered they both came originally from this neck of the -woods, and I came to investigate. - -“I planned to keep it quiet about what I wanted, because I am not a rich -man, but I am determined to own a horse of that strain. I know I needn’t -worry about you and Miss Hassock, for I see that you are both sportsmen. -But I must ask you to keep my mission to this part of the country under -your hats. I want a horse, but I can’t pay any fancy price for one.” - -Vane even fetched a leather portfolio from his room and showed -Willoughby Girl’s pedigree to his host and hostess, whose interest was -only too manifest. - -Jard Hassock gloated over it, breathing heavily through his nose. - -“If I could see Luke Dangler’s records—if Luke was halfway human—I -could hitch my own little filly onto this here pedigree,” he whispered -at last. “Onto this here royal pedigree! Can you beat it!” - -[Illustration] - - - - - CHAPTER IV - - - THE DANGEROUS DANGLERS - -Jard Hassock and Robert Vane talked horses. Jard now did most of the -talking. The glorious pedigree of Willoughby Girl had affected him as -the bray of trumpets affects old cavalry horses, as the piping of a high -wind in tree tops reawakens life and longing in the arteries of retired -mariners dozing in cottage gardens. His memory flashed pictures -appealing and glamorous to his mind’s eye, of cheering crowds and -white-fenced tracks and satin-coated horses speeding with outstretched -necks. His experiences had been entirely with harness racing—but the -horses who trot and pace are of the same strains of blood as those who -run. He remembered only the tingle and rush of victory. The dust of -defeat was forgotten. He lamented Lady Firefly’s extreme youth; and for -a moment he considered the advisability of approaching old Luke Dangler -in his stronghold on Goose Creek. But only for a moment. He knew Luke. -Luke had some promising youngsters in his stable—all presumably of the -old blood—but he knew by experience all the drawbacks to doing business -with that violent and cunning old crook. He knew that Luke had something -better than the little filly Lady Firefly. The fact that Luke had parted -with the roan filly, even on the amazing terms which he had forced upon -Jard, was proof enough for Jard that he held something better of the old -blood in reserve. - -Jard was not proud of the terms on which he had gained possession of the -roan filly. He was heartily ashamed of them; and he had kept them -strictly to himself until, in the excitement produced by the perusal of -Willoughby Girl’s pedigree, he showed his copy of the agreement to -Robert Vane. He had paid four hundred dollars for Lady Firefly as a -foal, and had pledged his word (written and witnessed) that he would not -part with her without Luke Dangler’s permission, that Luke was to have -one-half of the price if a sale were made, and that if she were bred -from while in Jard’s possession Luke was to have a half-interest in all -offspring. - -“And you agreed to this?” queried Vane, in astonishment. - -“It was my only way of gettin’ her; an’ I got to have a bit of speed -comin’ along in my stable—simply got to! It’s the way I was made. Life -ain’t worth gettin’ out of bed for without it. I’ve tried. An’ I’ve -tried other strains of blood, but I never won a race with anything but -what I got from Luke Dangler.” - -“But what about the others, the Willy Horse and Strawberry Lightning? -Did you own them on the same conditions?” - -“No. I owned the Willy Horse hoof an’ hide, an’ I bred the mare myself. -But I had to sell the horse to Luke Dangler for four hundred.” - -“Had to?” - -“Had to is right, mister. Them Danglers an’ old Dave Hinch work -together. Dave’s a money-lender—one of the real old-fashioned kind—and -a note-shaver. He got hold of some of my paper once. ’Nough said! An’ -the Danglers! Say, mister, any man who gets in dead wrong with a Dangler -of Goose Crick had best clear out of this section of woods, or he’ll -find himself dead in it some day. Yes, mister, they squoze the Willy -Horse out of me an’ sold him down in Maryland for three thousand; an’ he -was sold in New Orleans a year after that for twenty thousand; an’ when -Luke an’ Dave seen that on the sportin’ pages they was mad enough to -bite horseshoes. An’ it was for fear of them two old crooks I sold -Strawberry Lightnin’. As soon as she won a few races they got after me; -an’ they’d of got her, too—or me—if I hadn’t sold her quick acrost the -line.” - -“Where’s this Goose Creek?” asked Vane. - -“What d’you want to know for?” countered Jard. - -“I’m going there to-morrow to have a look at this old ruffian Dangler -and his horses.” - -“Take a few days to think it over,” advised Jard. “If you walk right up -to old Luke’s house an’ say you want to look over his horses with the -intention of buyin’ one, he’ll size you up for a millionaire an’ act -accordin’. So far, except for the few deals he’s made with me, he’s done -all his business down in the States. The farther away from home he sells -a horse of the old blood the better he’s pleased. Maybe he’s still scart -of the law gettin’ him somehow for what his pa did ninety-nine years -ago, or maybe it’s nothin’ but the plain hoggishness of his nature, but -he keeps mighty quiet an’ secret about his business in this province. He -loses money by it, for you can bet he don’t get what he asks down there -among them lads, with three or four days of railroadin’ behind him, but -ends in takin’ what he can get. Away from his own stampin’ ground, an’ -among men maybe as crooked as himself, but with more brains an’ better -manners, I guess he gets the light end of the deal every time. So I -reckon he’s scart. If he wasn’t he’d show a certified pedigree for the -horses he sells, with Willoughby Girl played up big in it—but nothin’ -of the kind! If you was to mention that stolen mare to him he’d pertend -he didn’t know what you was talkin’ about—but you’d want to get a long -ways off from Goose Crick before dark jist the same.” - -“But what would happen if I saw his horses and made him an offer for one -of them?” - -“I reckon you’d get the horse—if you offered twenty thousand for it, or -maybe if you offered ten.” - -“No chance! But what if I made a reasonable offer?” - -“He’d be sore as a boil; an’ he’d cal-late you’d come all the way from -New York jist to spy on him—an’ you’d be lucky if you got out alive.” - -“But that’s absurd! Isn’t there any law in this country?” - -“Plenty of it. Game laws an’ all sorts. There’s the law old Dave Hinch -uses when he gets hold of a bit of paper with your name on it, even if -you never saw the danged thing before, or have maybe paid it twice -already. But there ain’t no law ag’in a man losin’ himself in the woods. -That’s the Dangler way, but don’t tell them I said so.” - -“Do you really know something, or are you only talking?” - -“I know what I’m talkin’ about, an’ I’m talkin’ for your good, Mr. Vane. -I got a pretty clear memory more’n forty years long; an’ I can remember -quite a slew of folks who’ve fell out with the Danglers one way an’ -another; an’ some of them cleared out, an’ four was lost in the -woods—five, countin’ poor Pete Sledge. Pete’s the only man I know of -who ever defied the Danglers and refused to run away, an’ is still alive -right here in Forkville. But you’d ought to see Pete. He’d be a lesson -to you.” - -“What’s the matter with him?” - -Jard tapped his brow significantly with a finger-tip. - -“Lost an’ found ag’in,” he said. “But he was half-witted when they found -him, an’ he’s been that way ever since—an’ that was nigh onto twenty -years ago.” - -“What happened to him?” - -“He tells a queer story—but you can’t pin it on any Dangler, even if -you believe it. Pete an’ one of the Dangler men fell out about a girl. -Pete wiped up Gus Johnson’s chipyard with that Dangler. There was good -trappin’ country way up Squaw Brook in them days, an’ Pete used to work -it. He had a little shack up there, an’ that’s where he’d spend most of -the winter, tendin’ his traps. It was along in the fall of the year he -knocked Dangler down an’ drug him around; an’ it was along in the first -week of January he woke up in his bunk on Squaw Brook one night jist in -the nick of time to bust his way out an’ take a roll in the snow. He had -most of his clothes on, for he’d been sleepin’ in them; an’ he had his -top blanket, an’ his mackinaw with mitts in the pockets, which he had -grabbed up an’ brought out with him. - -“The roof fell in before he could figure on how to save anything else -but his snowshoes, which stood jist inside the door. His rifle an’ pelts -an’ grub were all burned—all except a ham, which was roasted to a turn -when he raked it out with a long pole. His axe was in the -choppin’-block. He cut the blanket an’ tied up his feet in strips of it, -wonderin’ all the time how the shack come to catch fire. So he took a -look around, by the light of a half-moon, an’ he found tracks leadin’ -right up to the smokin’ mess that had been his shack an’ right away -ag’in. But they were bear tracks. So he cal’lated it must of been the -stovepipe, for how could a bear set a fire? Where would he get the -matches? But he took another think; an’ then he put on his snowshoes an’ -shouldered the ham an’ the axe an’ lit out after the bear. It was a big -bear, to judge by its paws; an’ he was mad enough to kill it with the -axe. He reckoned that would serve it right for not bein’ asleep in a -hole like a decent bear should of been, even if it hadn’t set fire to -his camp. - -“For the best part of a mile he followed along jist as fast as he could -lift his webs an’ spat ’em down ag’in, until he had to stop an’ tie up -one of his blanket socks; an’ that give him a close-up view of the -tracks which he hadn’t taken since his first examination of them, an’ he -seen that the old varmint wasn’t usin’ his forepaws now but was -travelin’ on his hind legs only. Well, sir, that made him madder yet an’ -kinder pleased with the way things were shapin’, too; so he tore off -enough of the roasted ham to fill his pockets an’ throwed away the rest -of it an’ lit out on the tracks of that queer bear ag’in like he was -runnin’ a race with the champeen snowshoer of Montreal. - -“Dawn came up red, an’ still the bear wasn’t in sight. Pete kept right -on, but not quite so fast, chawin’ ham as he traveled. He cal-lated he -was makin’ better time than any bear could run on its hind legs, an’ -would overhaul it in another hour at the outside. Pretty soon he picked -up a burnt match. Then he _knew_ he wouldn’t have much trouble skinnin’ -that bear when once he’d caught it. But he wished harder’n ever he had -his rifle—for a bear that carries matches is jist as like as not to -tote a gun, too. The ham an’ the runnin’ give him a plagued thrist, an’ -he went an’ et some snow instead of waitin’ till he come to a brook an’ -choppin’ a waterhole. He et some more snow, an’ that kinder took the -heart out of him. - -“He was jist on the p’int of quittin’ an’ turnin’ off to shape a -bee-line for the nearest clearance, when his nose caught a whiff of cold -tobacco smoke on the air. That told him Mister Bear wasn’t far ahead, -an’ he broke into runnin’ ag’in jist as tight as he could flop his webs. -But he didn’t get far that time. What with thirst an’ bellyache an’ the -bum riggin’ he had on his feet instead of moccasins, he tripped an’ took -a hell of a tumble. An’ when he got himself right-end-up an’ sorted out -he found a pain in his right ankle like a knife an’ one of his snowshoes -busted an’ the sun all grayed over. He was in a nasty fix. He tried -travelin’ on one foot, but that soon bested him. His ankle was real bad. -Atop all that, he was in a bit of country he didn’t recognize an’ -couldn’t get a glimpse of the sun. - -“He got together some dry stuff for a fire—an’ then he remembered how -careful he’d been to take his matchbox out of his pocket an’ put it on -the table the night before—so’s he’d be sure to fill it chock-a-block -in the mornin’. But he found one loose match. He fumbled that the first -try, an’ at the second try the head come off it. Can you beat it? Well, -sir, he kinder lost his grip then an’ spent quite a while feelin’ -through his pockets over an’ over ag’in for another match. Then he tried -hoppin’ ag’in. Then he tried crawlin’—but the snow was too deep for -that game. He let some more snow melt in his mouth, but his throat was -so sore already it was all he could do to swaller it. All of a sudden he -heard a kinder devilish laugh, an’ that started him rarin’ round ag’in -on one foot, though he didn’t see nothin’, till he fell down. - -“After that he dug a hole in the snow an’ cut some fir boughs an’ -snugged down. He heard that laugh plenty of times ag’in, an’ for the -first few times he crawled out after it; but pretty soon it scart him so -he couldn’t move. He says he don’t remember what he did after that, but -when Noel an’ Gabe Sabattis found him next day he had ten big spruces -felled an’ was whirlin’ into the eleventh an’ tellin’ the world he had -the devil treed at last. Crazy as a coot! He ain’t recovered yet, though -he’s quiet enough an’ talks sane now an’ then. He knows who set his -shack a-fire, anyhow.” - -“Good Lord!” exclaimed Vane. “And do you believe it?” - -“I don’t believe he had the devil up a tree.” - -“That someone set fire to his camp?” - -“Sure I do, an’ that Amos Dangler’s the man who done it, with the paws -of a bear on his feet an’ hands. But don’t tell anybody I said so, for -the love of Mike!” - -After a brief but thoughtful silence Vane said, “If I should happen to -get in wrong with that bunch, I promise you I won’t run away.” - -“I guess you want a horse real bad?” - -“I do now—but it was more a sentimental whim than anything else that -brought me here. Your Danglers don’t scare me worth a cent, Jard. They -make me hot behind the ears. Now I’ll have the best animal they’ve got -of the old strain, if it takes me a year.” - -“Maybe my filly’s as good as anything Luke Dangler’s got.” - -“If that proves to be the case I’ll take her, too, if you’ll sell. But I -tell you frankly that it’s a Dangler horse I want now.” - -Jard wagged his head. - -Tom McPhee came in that evening with a face of concern. - -“Joe’s gone,” he said. “Steve Dangler come for her, an’ took her out to -her grandpa’s. Goose Crick’s no place for a girl like Joe.” - -“What the hell did you let her go for?” cried Jard. - -“Wouldn’t you of let her go?” returned McPhee pointedly. - -Jard sighed, and scratched his nose. - -“Well, I wouldn’t of!” exclaimed Miss Hassock. “I wouldn’t of let all -the Danglers on the crick budge her an inch out of my house—and you men -can put that in your pipes and see how it smokes.” - -Hassock and McPhee exchanged expressive glances and uneasy smiles. - -“Did old Dave go, too?” asked Jard. - -“He did not,” replied McPhee. “He’s comin’ here to-morrow. He says he’ll -take Joe back to keep house for him when he rebuilds next summer, but he -won’t pay her board to live in idleness.” - -“That’s what you pulled out of the fire,” said Jard, turning accusingly -to Vane. Then, “What’s he comin’ here for?” he asked McPhee. - -“To live till he rebuilds, that’s all. He says Molly’s biscuits ain’t -fit to eat.” - -“He will find mine worse,” said Miss Hassock grimly. “But that ain’t the -point. It’s Joe I’m worryin’ about. Them Danglers is all rough an’ -tough, men an’ women alike. It was a bad day for Joe old Dave Hinch’s -house burnt down. If I was a man I’d bust up that bunch on Goose Crick -if I was killed for it.” - -“It’s been there nigh onto a hundred years; an’ I reckon there’s as good -men hereabouts as anywhere,” objected McPhee. “If the law can’t fasten -nothin’ onto them, what can us fellers do?” - -“The law!” exclaimed Liza derisively. “An’ what about the officers of -the law? The law’s no more than printed words if it ain’t worked by -human hands.” - -Vane gave Jard Hassock the slip next morning and went for a walk. He -halted at the top of the hill above the upper end of the village and lit -his pipe and looked around. He saw black woods and white clearings up -hill and down dale, a few scattered farmhouses with azure smoke -ascending to a blue sky washed with sunshine, the roofs of the village -crawling down to the low black ruins that had been old Dave Hinch’s -house, and to the covered bridge across the white stream, and the -twisting road and climbing hills beyond the bridge. He saw the fork in -the river, above the bridge, after which the village had been named. He -thought of the queer chance that had brought him to this place just in -time to save the great-granddaughter of Mark Dangler from death by fire. -He saw a man issue from the back door of the nearest house, run to the -road and ascend the hill toward him at a brisk jog. He waited, under the -impression that he was the man’s objective. He was right. The countryman -came up to him, grinning apologetically. - -“Can you spare me a few matches, stranger?” he asked. - -Vane was surprised at the question, but instantly produced a dozen or -more loose matches and handed them over. They were gratefully received -and carefully tucked away in an inner pocket. - -“I always carry a-plenty now, an’ pick up more ever’ chance I get, for -once I was caught with only one,” explained the villager. “An’ that one -was bad.” He smiled knowingly. “I reckon it ain’t likely I’ll ever be -caught with only one match ag’in.” - -Vane saw something unusual about the fellow’s eyes. They were bright, -they were gentle, though intent in their glance, and yet in their -expression something expected was lacking, and something unlooked for -was present. The effect was disconcerting. Otherwise the man looked -normal enough. His full beard and heavy mustache were dark brown -streaked with gray. - -“Can you point me the way to Goose Creek?” asked Vane. - -The other faced the north, and pointed with his hand. - -“It lays five mile upstream, but there ain’t no settlement at the -mouth,” he said. “They’re all Danglers on that crick, but some of ’em -has other names. It’s about seven mile by road straight through to their -main settlement from here. But if ye’re lookin’ for Amos Dangler ye’re -too late.” - -“Is that the road?” asked Vane, pointing. - -“That’s it, but if ye’re lookin’ for Amos you won’t find him. He come -snoopin’ ’round my girl—Kate Johnson’s her name—an’ I chased him into -the top of a big spruce an’ chopped him down an’ fixed him for keeps.” - -“How long ago did that happen?” - -“Quite a spell back. Maybe a month—maybe a year. It was winter time, -anyhow—an’ Kate an’ me figger to get married in the spring. Do you -happen to have a few matches on you more’n you need?” - -Again a few matches changed pockets. - -“I always make a p’int of pickin’ ’em up,” explained the collector. -“Good things for to keep handy, matches. When you do need ’em, you need -’em bad.” - -“I believe you,” returned Vane. “A match is like a gun.” - -“Somethin’ like, but not altogether. You can’t light a fire with an -axe—but sometimes you can make an axe do instead of a gun.” - -“Yes, that’s so. You are Pete Sledge, aren’t you?” - -“That’s me. How did you know?” - -After a moment’s hesitation, Vane replied, “Jard Hassock spoke of you as -the smartest hunter and trapper in these parts. I put two and two -together.” - -The other nodded, evidently quite satisfied, - -“I suppose you know all this country for miles around as well as you -know this village,” added Vane. - -Again Sledge nodded. “Like that,” he said, extending his left hand and -opening it palm upward. - -“I’m interested in the country,” said Vane. “I wish you would take me -out sometimes. I can travel on snowshoes.” - -“Any night you say, stranger. But no shootin’, mind you! It’s close -season.” - -“I don’t want to shoot anything. But why night?” - -“Night? I don’t run the woods in the daytime now, nor ain’t for quite a -spell—for a year, maybe—or maybe two. There’s a reason, but I can’t -jist agsactly recollect it. Maybe it’s because I stop to home an’ sleep -all day.” - -“What about to-night?” - -“Suits me fine.” - -“Good! I’ll meet you here at eleven o’clock to-night.” - -“No, you best give me a call. That there’s my window. You give a knock -on it with yer knuckles, an’ I’ll be right there.” - -They retraced their steps as far as Pete Sledge’s little house in -company. Then Vane returned directly to Moosehead House. He heard from -Miss Hassock that old Dave had not yet put in an appearance. - - - - - CHAPTER V - - - THE GUARDED ROAD - -Vane told Jard Hassock of his meeting with poor Pete Sledge but not a -word about their engagement for eleven o’clock that night. He spoke of -Pete’s illusion to the effect that he killed Amos Dangler with an axe. - -“Sure, that’s his crazy idee,” said Jard. “An’ Amos Dangler keeps out of -his way. That ain’t hard to do, for Pete sticks pretty close ’round -home. He’s crazy—but he’s still got a heap of ordinary horse-sense -left, has Pete Sledge.” - -“What’s become of the girl they fought about?” - -“Kate Johnson? She married Amos Dangler eighteen years ago an’ is still -alive an’ hearty up Goose Crick, far’s I know.” - -“Pete thinks she is going to marry him in the spring. It seems that he -has not kept a very close watch on the flight of time.” - -“He’s crazy. Sometimes he talks as if his shack on Squaw Brook was -burned down only a week ago. An’ he’s everlasting’ly beggin’ matches. -Keeps every pocket of every coat he owns full of matches. But he’s still -got streaks of sanity. He has brains enough, but some of them’s got -twisted, that’s all. Nobody can best him at a game of checkers nor at -raisin’ chickens an’ gettin’ aigs. It’s a queer case. Now what do you -reckon would happen if the truth that he didn’t ever kill Amos Dangler -was to pop into his head some day?” - -“I was wondering the same thing. What do you think?” - -“I guess he’d rectify his mistake without loss of time—an’ that he’d do -it with an axe. Maybe he’d even chase Amos up a tree first an’ then chop -him down, jist so’s to have everything right. Folks who’ve been -demented, crazy, lunatic as long as Pete has ain’t always practical. -They like to do things their own way, but they sure like to do ’em. How -do you cal’late to set about gettin’ a horse out of old Luke?” - -“Speaking of lunatics, what?” - -“Well, sir, you got to use the best part of valor, that’s a sure thing.” - -“I agree with you. One or the other of us should think of a way in a few -days. There’s no particular hurry.” - -The hotel had only two guests at this time, Vane and the person whom he -had heard snoring on the night of his spectacular arrival. The snorer -was the manager of the “Grange” store, an elderly, anxious looking man -who always returned to the store immediately after dinner and retired to -his room immediately after supper. - -The afternoon passed without sight or further word of old Dave Hinch; -but Tom McPhee appeared after supper with a budget of intelligence that -was well received by the Hassocks. Old Hinch was ill—so ill that he had -sent Tom down to Rattles for the doctor—so ill that his conscience was -troubling him for having parted with his granddaughter. - -“If he don’t feel better by mornin’ he’ll send for her,” said McPhee. -“And a good thing, too. That young skunk Steve Dangler’s sweet on the -girl; an’ Dave knows it. Now that he’s feelin’ real sick he don’t like -it. He ain’t a bad sort of old man when he’s scart he may die any -minute.” - -“Maybe Luke Dangler won’t sent Joe back ag’in. He’s as much her grandpa -as Dave Hinch himself,” said Jard. - -“But Dave’s her guardeen, which Luke ain’t,” returned McPhee. - -At eleven o’clock that night Robert Vane rattled his fingernails on the -glass of Pete Sledge’s dark window. Nothing happened. He tapped again, -louder this time, and waited expectantly for the sudden flare of a match -behind the black panes. Nothing flared; and he was about to rap a yet -louder summons on the window when a slight sound behind him caused him -to jump and turn in his tracks. There stood Pete Sledge a few paces off, -with an axe on his shoulder. - -“Reckon I give you a start,” said Pete in a pleased tone. - -“You did,” returned Vane. “I was looking for you in front.” - -“I stopped inside long’s I could after ma went to bed, an’ then I come -out an’ waited behind the woodpile.” - -“Why behind the woodpile?” - -“No harm intended, but yer a stranger to me. But I reckon yer all right. -Which way d’ye want to go?” - -“What about Goose Creek?” - -Pete Sledge stepped close to Vane at that and peered keenly into his -face for a moment. - -“Friend of them Danglers?” he asked. - -“I’ve never set my eyes on a Dangler in my life, but I’ve heard of them -from Jard Hassock and I’m curious about them,” replied Vane. - -“Why don’t you go over to Goose Crick with Jard?” - -“He won’t go. He seems to be afraid of the place—and the people.” - -“And you ain’t?” - -“Not worth a cent!” - -Sledge showed signs of embarrassment. “I ain’t what you would properly -call scart, but I don’t jist hanker after that there section of -country,” he said. “Oh, no, I ain’t scart! Ain’t I fell out with them -Danglers an’ bested ’em? But Goose Crick don’t interest me none. But -what is it you want of them folks?” - -“I feel a curiosity concerning them which I think is quite natural. I -want to see where they live—the people who have thrown a scare into the -whole countryside. If you won’t come along, I’ll go alone. They must be -very remarkable people.” - -Pete Sledge said nothing to that, did nothing. Vane went out to the road -and up the hill. He had expected better of Pete Sledge in the way of -courage—though why, considering the fact that the poor fellow had -already been frightened half out of his wits, it is difficult to say. At -the top of the rise above Forkville he turned into the side road which -Pete had indicated to him that morning. It was a well pounded track -which cut through snowdrifts at some points, and humped itself over them -at others. For a mile or two it passed through white clearings broken by -groups of farm buildings and scattered groves, and beyond that it -slipped into obscurity between black walls of second-growth spruce and -fir. - -Vane walked alone, to the best of his knowledge and belief; and he felt -lonely. He felt uneasy. Rifts in the marching ranks of the forest -admitted pale glimmers of starshine to the road here and there, -discovering the depths of the darkness and queer lumps of shadow and -weird blotches of pallor right and left to his exploring glances. He -wondered just why he had come, not to mention what he would do when he -arrived. He remembered that it is recorded somewhere that curiosity -killed the cat. It is doubtful if he would have felt any better if he -had known that Pete Sledge was behind him, within fifty paces of him. He -didn’t know it, but it was so. - -Here and there a narrow clearing widened the outlook slightly without -enlivening it. At the edge of one of these crouched a little deserted -lath mill, its fallen tin smokestack and sagging roof eloquent of -failure, disillusion, the death of a petty ambition. This was at least -six miles from Forkville, at a rough guess; and as soon as he was past -it Vane began looking eagerly into the gloom ahead for a glimpse of the -clearings of the Dangler settlement; but before he had gone two hundred -yards beyond the deserted mill he heard a piercing whistle behind him. -He jumped to the side of the road and crouched there, every sense alert -and straining. There had been no possibility of mistaking the -significant character of the shrill sound. It had been a warning and a -signal. And within ten seconds it was answered, repeated, at a point in -the darkness two hundred yards or so farther along in the direction of -the Goose Creek settlement. - -Vane realized that, with an alert sentry behind him and another in front -of him, now was the time for quick action. He didn’t even pause to -wonder what the sinister Danglers could be about to make the posting of -sentries on the road worth their while. Noiselessly and swiftly he -shifted his snowshoes from his shoulders to his feet; and then, after a -moment given to sensing his position in relation to the river and -Forkville, and the lay of the land, he slipped noiselessly into the -thick and elastic underbrush. - -The second sentry, the man who had repeated the shrill warning of Vane’s -approach was Hen Dangler, one of the middle-aged members of the gang, a -nephew of old Luke. Having passed along the signal and heard it answered -from the nearest house, he grasped a sled-stake of rock maple firmly in -his right hand and closed swiftly upon the point on the road from which -the first whistle had sounded. This was according to plan. He ran -silently, listening for sounds of a struggle or of flight and pursuit. -He heard nothing; and he encountered nothing until he found the first -sentry, the original alarmist, flat on his face in the middle of the -road and blissfully unconscious of his position. - -The unconscious sentry was Steve Dangler, Hen’s son, the very same Steve -who was “sweet on” his second cousin, Joe Hinch. After a face massage -with snow and a gulp from Hen’s flask, he opened his eyes and sat up. - -“What happened?” asked Hen. “Why the hell didn’t you leave him pass you -an’ git between us, like we planned? You must of blowed yer whistle -right in his face.” - -“Face, nothin’. He passed me, all right. Then I whistled—an’ got yer -answer—an’ started after him—an’ then—good night!” - -“Hell! Say, there must be two of ’em.” - -“Wouldn’t wonder, onless I kicked up behind an’ beaned meself with me -own foot.” - -“Who was it—the one you seen go past you?” - -“Dunno. Stranger to me. Rigged out like a sport, far’s I could -see—blast ’im! Last time he’ll ever git past this baby!” - -“Maybe so. If you feel up to steppin’ out we’d best be headin’ along for -home. Take a holt on my arm.” - -They made what speed they could toward the clearings and habitations of -Goose Creek, probing the shadows about them with apprehensive eyes, and -questioning the silence with anxious ears. Clear of the wood at last, -they drew deep breaths of relief. They felt better, but only for a brace -of seconds. Fear of immediate physical attack was gone, only to be -replaced by anxiety for the future. - -“Don’t it beat damnation!” lamented the father. “Here we been layin’ out -’most every night for two months an’ nothin’ happened an’ then the very -first time there’s any need for it you go an’ git fooled an’ beaned into -the bargain! Say, I wisht I’d been where you was.” - -“Same here.” - -“Zat so? Keep in mind that ye’re talkin’ to yer pa, Steve Dangler. It -wouldn’t of happened like that if I’d been there. My wits wouldn’t of -been wool-pickin’ after no danged girl. I’d been watchin’ out behind.” - -“All right, pa. You tell old Luke all about it.” - -After a long journey on a curved course, and much thrusting through -tough underbrush and climbing up and plunging down, Robert Vane came out -on the highroad at the top of the hill above the village. He halted -there to remove his webs, and was there confronted by poor Pete Sledge -who appeared out of the vague starshine as if by magic. - -“How d’you like them Danglers?” asked Pete. - -“I haven’t met any of them yet,” replied Vane. - -“Nor you don’t want to. Leave ’em lay, stranger, leave ’em lay. Run home -quick an’ go to bed, an’ don’t tell a word of what happened to-night to -Jard Hassock nor nobody.” - -“What do you mean by what happened to-night?” - -“Well, you got a scare, didn’t you? You didn’t come home the same way -you went.” - -“I’m not afraid of them.” - -“But you took to the woods. You was scart enough for that—an’ smart -enough. Leave ’em lay, stranger; an’ if I was you I’d get out of this -here Forkville to-morrow an’ try somewheres else.” - -“Try what somewhere else?” - -Pete winked and asked for a match. He tucked the match away in his -pocket. - -“What is it you want of Goose Crick?” he asked. “Whatever you want, it’s -nothin’ only trouble you’ll get—but jist tell me, an’ I’ll tell if -you’re lyin’ or not.” - -“That’s very good of you. I’ll think it over. Now I’m off for bed.” - -“Hold yer hosses a minute! You can trust me. I love a Dangler like a lad -goin’ a-courtin’ loves to meet a skunk.” - -“So you say, but I’m not so sure of it as I was a while ago. To be quite -frank with you, there was someone behind me to-night—and whoever he -was, he was in league with the Danglers.” - -“There was two behind you to-night. Two. An’ I was only one of ’em. -T’other was young Steve Dangler. But Steve didn’t know I was there, -which was a pity for him, but a good thing for me an’ you. I didn’t -reckon you’d have sense enough to take to the woods, so I up an’ beaned -Steve so’s to clear the road behind you.” - -“Is that a fact?” - -“It sure is. But come along away from here. Come with me.” - -Pete led Vane to his own little barn behind his little house and up a -ladder into a little hay loft. From this loft, through a crack between -two weather-warped boards, one could watch the road from the top of the -hill all the way down through the village to the covered bridge. Vane -kept in close touch with his guide, ready for anything. They sat down on -fragrant hay; and Pete kept his eye on the crack and Vane kept an eye on -Pete. - -“What was you expectin’ to find on Goose Crick?” asked Pete. - -“A horse,” replied Vane, after a moment’s pause. “You are welcome to the -information—and so is old Luke Dangler. Now what about it?” - -“A horse?” - -“That’s what I said—and it’s exactly what I mean.” - -“A horse? Is that all?” - -“That’s all—but it seems to be plenty—more than enough—to judge from -the way Jard Hassock talks. Well, what about it?” - -“You want to steal a horse? You figgered out to steal a horse from old -Luke Dangler to-night? Say, stranger, that sounds jist about crazy -enough to be true! Jumpin’ cats! Stranger, Jard Hassock’s right. It -can’t be done.” - -“I want to buy a horse, if he has one that suits me.” - -“Buy a horse. Say, that’s different. That’s easy. All you need’s a -million dollars—or maybe ten thousand—or maybe only five.” - -“No fear! I’ll offer a fair price and not a dollar more.” - -“Then you won’t get no horse—not of the trottin’ stock, anyhow—but -trouble a-plenty. A horse? You must want one real bad. Now if it was a -woman it would be different, but any man who’d go git himself mixed up -with them Danglers for a horse—for the best durned horse in the -world—ain’t got all his brains workin’, to my way of thinkin’.” - -“You may be right. They seem to be difficult people to deal with, that’s -a fact. I had no idea that they went so far as to post sentries on the -road. Have many attempts been made to steal their horses?” - -Pete turned his glance from the crack in the wall to Vane’s face. Vane -could see the glimmer of the eyes and feel the searching of them. - -“You don’t look like a liar,” said Pete. - -“Thank you again,” said Vane. - -“Nor like a fool,” went on the native in a puzzled tone. “But you must -be one or t’other—or both.” - -“But I don’t know why you should think so,” protested Vane. - -“You ask Jard Hassock. Maybe he will tell you. I would, only I’m kinder -side-steppin’ trouble with them Danglers these days. A man figgerin’ on -fixin’ up with a wife come spring can’t be too careful.” - -Vane returned to Moosehead House, entered the kitchen window and gained -his room and his bed without detection. In spite of the hour, sleep did -not come to him immediately. - -He was excited and puzzled. The fact of the sentries on the road in to -Goose Creek puzzled and excited him, and so did the talk and behavior of -Pete Sledge. Why the sentries? Why the signals? Surely a man could breed -a few horses without such precautions as these. And what would have -happened to him if the Danglers had caught him? And what was Pete -Sledge’s game—if any? The fellow talked about marriage to a woman who -was already married, and about having killed a man who was still alive -and hearty within a few miles of him, and made a point of begging -matches and tucking them away like precious things—but was he as crazy -as these things suggested? He doubted it. - -[Illustration] - - - - - CHAPTER VI - - - THE WARNING - -Vane slept until Jard Hassock awoke him by pulling his toes. It was then -close upon nine o’clock of a fine morning. - -“Say, what ails you?” asked Jard. “You act like you’d been up an’ -roustin’ round all night.” - -“It’s your fine fresh air,” replied Vane, sliding reluctantly out of -bed. - -He breakfasted in the kitchen, but not a word did he say of the night’s -activities. He was told that McPhee had already called to say that young -Steve Dangler had already been in from Goose Creek with a message from -old Luke Dangler to old Dave Hinch. The gist of the message was that -Granddaughter Joe should remain where she was for as long as Grandpa -Dangler chose to keep her and if Grandpa Hinch didn’t like it the only -thing left for him to do was to lump it. - -“It wasn’t eight o’clock, but Steve was slewed already,” concluded Jard. - -“It’s a cruel, cryin’ shame and disgrace!” exclaimed Miss Hassock. “Dave -Hinch is a crooked old sinner and mean company for a girl like Joe—but -those Danglers are downright low. They’ll marry her to that swillin’, -bullyin’ rapscallion Steve, you see if they don’t; and not a man -hereabouts man enough to raise a hand!” - -“What’s his tipple?” asked Vane. “I thought this country was dry. Surely -he is not drinking lemon extract—and alive to show it? You used the -word swilling.” - -“He’s a hog, that’s why—whatever the stuff in his trough may be,” -retorted Liza. - -Jard winked at Vane. “You don’t have to drink lemon extract round here -nowadays, nor ain’t for nigh onto two years,” he said. “There’s real -liquor—so I hear—to be had for eight dollars a bottle, an’ somethin’ -that acts a darn sight more real for half the price. All you need’s the -money an’ the high sign.” - -“And the law?” - -“Law!” exclaimed Miss Hassock in a voice of angry derision. “Law! With -Danglers to bust it an’ a bunch of cowards an’ live-an’-let-livers to -look on, what’s the good of a law?” - -Jard nodded at Vane. “If Liza had been born a man she’d of been dead -quite a spell now,” he said. - -“But I guess there’d been a few other funerals about the same time as -mine,” said Miss Hassock, smiling grimly. - -“Bootleggers?—moonshiners?” queried Vane. - -This, he felt, explained the sentinels and the signals. - -“You said it that time, Mr. Vane—and it’s a treat to hear a man with -grit enough in his crop to say it out loud, even if he is only askin’,” -returned Liza. “Bootleggers and moonshiners is right. The Danglers take -the lead in every low devilment.” - -“Liza’s maybe right an’ maybe wrong,” said Jard. “I ain’t sayin’ -anythin’ about it, whatever I’m thinkin’; an’ I hope you won’t, -neither—not while you live in Moosehead House, anyhow. Liza’s mighty -free with her mean names, talkin’ about cowards an’ the like—but—well, -her an’ my property is all right here—this hotel an’ the land an’ the -barns. So we got to stop right here, an’ I’d sooner stop here alive than -dead. I can’t afford to be so gosh darned brave—like Liza.” - -The fire went out of the big woman’s eyes and the derision left her -lips. She strode over to her brother, stooped and laid a hand on his -shoulder. - -“Please forgive me, Jard,” she said. “You are right and I am all wrong.” - -Steve Dangler had not come to Forkville that morning for the sole -purpose of delivering old Luke’s defiant message to old Dave. He had -been instructed to hunt out and look over and size up the stranger who -was rigged out like a sport, and who had passed him and yet escaped him -the night before. There was no doubt in either Steve’s or old Luke’s -mind that this person was a police officer or law officer spying around -on behalf of the nearest Prohibition Enforcement Inspector. But even so, -it would be wise to make sure, and to size him up and get a line on his -character and methods, before deciding on the safest and surest way of -dealing with him. To date, the usual methods of lulling official -suspicion, combined with the long-established terror of the Dangler -name, had suffered to keep inviolate the secret activities of Goose -Creek. - -When Steve reached the front door of Moosehead House, Jard Hassock was -gossiping at the village smithy, Miss Hassock was in the kitchen and -Robert Vane was up in his room writing a letter to a friend whose father -owned a town house in New York, a country home on Long Island and a -winter place in Florida. He was writing to the Florida address. Steve -opened the hotel door, entered, glanced into the empty office on the -right, and the empty “settin’-room” on the left, cocked his ear for -sounds of Miss Hassock, whom he feared, then ascended the stairs swiftly -and silently. After looking into three unoccupied bedrooms, he halted -and struck a casual attitude on Vane’s threshold. - -“Where’s Simmons?” he asked. “He ain’t at the store.” - -This was a lie, but Steve would rather tell a lie than the truth even -when no advantage was to be derived from it. - -Vane looked up from his letter, which was progressing very slowly and -dully, and regarded the questioner from beneath slightly raised -eyebrows. - -“Not here,” he said, and stared down at the half-written letter again -and crossed out the last line. - -“He lives here, don’t he?” - -“Not in this room.” - -“He hangs out in this hotel, I guess.” - -“He snores here, and eats here.” - -“Guess I’ll go try the store ag’in.” - -“Not a bad idea.” - -Vane turned his eyes and attention back to his letter, and Steve shifted -his weight uneasily from foot to foot. Vane made no headway. He realized -that he was not in the least interested in the task under his pen and -suddenly wondered, with a disconcerting feeling of futility, if he had -ever been sincerely interested in the person for whom this letter was -intended. Or was it all part of a game—this unfinished letter and other -completed letters? - -“Have a seegar, mister,” suggested the man on the threshold, digging -fingers into a pocket. - -“I’ll smoke a pipe, if it’s all the same to you,” returned Vane. “Come -in and sit down, won’t you—if you’re not too busy?” - -The other accepted the invitation, selected a comfortable chair, dropped -his cap on the floor, lit a cigar and spat neatly into the fire. Vane -laid aside his pen, turned an elbow upon ink and paper and lit his pipe. - -“Sportin’?” queried Steve, in his best society manner. - -“Not as you mean,” replied Vane. “I’m not lookin’ for anything to shoot. -Close season, for that matter. But my visit is certainly connected with -sport.” - -“Zat so,” returned Steve, with honest curiosity and ill-hid suspicion -conflicting in his hot brown eyes. “Sport, hey?” - -“Yes. I came here to find a horse.” - -“A horse? Did you lose one?” - -“No. But I have heard of good horses coming from this part of the -country, and I hope to be able to buy a young one of the good strain—of -the Strawberry Lightning strain. I’ve seen Hassock’s roan filly, but I -hear that the real breeder is an old man named Luke Dangler who lives up -on Goose Creek. You know him, I suppose. Do you know if he has any young -bays of that strain? Bay is the right color—the Willy Horse color. I -have a few hundreds that are ready and eager to talk horse.” - -“Sure I know old Luke Dangler. My own name’s Dangler, an’ I come from -Goose Crick myself. He’s got a couple of young uns of the right color, -an’ the right lines. Say, I guess ye’re the gent who drug old Dave Hinch -an’ Joe out of the fire?” - -“Yes, I happened along just in time.” - -“I’ll say so. But why ain’t you been out to see Luke Dangler before -this? It ain’t far to his place.” - -“I was thinking of calling on him to-morrow.” - -“D’ye know the way to Goose Crick?” - -“I’ll find it, don’t worry. Hassock will start me right.” - -“Sure he’ll start you right, an’ it’s a straight road once you git -started; an’ you’ll find the old man all ready to talk horse. I’ll tell -him ye’re comin’.” - -Steve Dangler went away, puzzled, but still suspicious. Vane was not -exactly what he had expected to find. The only thing in which the -stranger had met expectations was the matter of lying. He had lied -concerning his knowledge of the road to Goose Creek, but in everything -else he had proved unexpected. His manner was not that of any -enforcement officer known to or imagined by Steve. It was the manner of -the best type of “sport” known to Steve, of the two-guides sportsman. -And the talk about wanting to buy a horse! That was clever. He’d picked -up the dope from Jard Hassock, of course—but it was smart. But it -didn’t fool Steve. If the stranger had wanted to see old Luke’s horses, -why had he tried to sneak into the settlement in the middle of the -night—unless he’d figured on stealing one? No, even Steve could not -seriously suspect him of being a horse-thief. He was some sort of damn -detective looking for something he knew they wouldn’t show to him, -that’s what he was. - -Steve went home and made his report and as many comments on the subject -of the same as old Luke had patience to listen to. Then Steve was -dismissed, Amos and Hen called in by the old man, and many methods of -eliminating the dangerous stranger from the existing scheme of things on -Goose Creek were discussed. Amos was a crafty plotter. He had a strong -imagination of the crafty and destructive sort, and a genius for detail. -No man had ever escaped from a plot of his planning except by chance. - -Vane was at a loss to know what to do next. His curiosity concerning the -Danglers of Goose Creek was now quite as keen as his distaste for them, -and both his distaste and curiosity were keener than his original -purpose in visiting Forkville. It was still his intention to obtain a -young animal of the Willoughby Girl strain, a bay with white legs, for -choice; but to deal these Danglers a blow of some sort seemed to him now -a more worthy and more intriguing ambition. Something of the kind was -due them. Something of the nature of a nasty set-back had been due them -for years and years. He decided to have another session with Pete -Sledge. - -It was eleven o’clock before Jard left him. Jard had talked of Eclipse -blood for two hours without a break, but he had not suggested a way of -commencing negotiations with Luke Dangler for the purchase of a horse. -Vane extinguished the lamp and replenished the fire upon Jard’s -departure. An hour passed, and he was about to venture forth and down -the stairs and out of the house in search of Pete when he was startled -by a sharp rap on one of his windows. He jumped to his feet and faced -the window. On the instant it sounded again, like the impact of a sliver -of ice or fragment of snow-crust on the thin glass. He jumped to the -window and raised the sash, and was about to stoop and thrust out his -head when something hit him smartly on the ribs and dropped to the -floor. It was a small white handkerchief weighted and knotted into a -ball. He undid the knots in a few seconds, and found inside a small -stone and a folded scrap of paper. - - _Don’t go to Goose Creek to-morrow or ever. Please go away. You - are in great danger. I warn you in gratitude. Please destroy - this and go away to-morrow morning._ - -He read it, then stooped again and looked out and down from the window. -In the vague starshine he could see nothing of the secretive messenger. -He closed the window swiftly but silently, tossed the scrap of paper -into the fire, pocketed the stone and little handkerchief, slipped into -his outer coat, snatched up cap and mittens and left the room. He had -been fully dressed, with his moccasins on and everything ready for a -quick exit; and this fact was the very thing that upset the calculations -of the thrower of the warning. - -Vane made a clean getaway from the window of the kitchen, and overtook -the running figure before him just short of the top of the hill. It was -Joe Hinch, carrying her snowshoes under an arm. She halted and turned at -the touch of his hand, breathing quickly. She glanced at him, then down, -without a word. - -“I hope I haven’t frightened you,” he said hurriedly. “But I had to know -if it was you—or a trick. How did you come? How did you get away? Why -are you going back?” - -“It is not a trick,” she replied. “You are in danger.” - -“Now? Immediate danger?” - -“To-morrow—and after. If you go, or if you don’t.” - -“Who came with you? And why did you come?” - -“Nobody. I slipped out easily, and took a long way through the woods. -And now I must hurry back. And you will promise to go away to-morrow. -Please promise me that.” - -“But why do you go back to that place? You have a grandfather here, and -plenty of friends.” - -“I’m as safe there as here. I’m not in any danger. You are in danger. -You must go away. To-morrow! Promise me that—please!” - -“But why? What are they afraid of? I came only to buy a horse.” - -“They don’t believe that.” - -“What do they think I’m after?” - -“I can’t tell you. But don’t you believe me? Don’t you know that I am -telling the truth—that you are in danger? Do you think I’d came all -that way alone through the woods at night for—for fun?” - -“I believe you, of course. But I think you must have an exaggerated idea -of the danger.” - -“Exaggerated! Do you think I’m a fool? You are in danger of—of—death!” - -“Death? Then it is not for the first time; and why should it be the -first time for me to run away?” - -“You must go!” - -“I’m sorry, but it can’t be done. Even if the danger is as actual as you -say—and not for a moment do I doubt the sincerity of your belief in -it—I can’t allow my plans to be altered by people of that—by a few -suspicious countrymen.” - -“They are—my people. Their leader—the oldest and worst of them—is my -grandfather. I know them better than you do.” - -“I’m sorry, really I am; and I think you are a brick for coming out to -warn me. You have more than squared our little account, for what I did -at the fire required very little effort, and no courage whatever. I -promise not to venture alone into their headquarters to-morrow, but it -is absolutely impossible for me to run away from them just because they -happen to suspect me of being something I am not. If I were to do a -thing like that, I shouldn’t be able to live with myself afterward.” - -“You won’t go?” - -“My dear girl, how can I go? My mission is peaceful and lawful. I’m not -looking for trouble. I am sorry, but you can see how absolutely -impossible it is for me to run away just to humor a gang of—a violent -and suspicious old man and that ignorant young lout.” - -And then he realized that she was weeping. - -“Miss Hinch! Please—ah, you mustn’t, really! You are tired—the tramp -through the woods. Come, be a good girl, let me take you to Miss -Hassock, or to the McPhees. You have friends in this village—plenty of -them, the entire population, I’m sure. Come, you need a good rest. I’m -quite safe, and I’ll not make trouble. There’s really nothing to cry -about. Come to Miss Hassock, there’s a good girl. Why should you go back -to that place, anyway—against your guardian’s wishes?” - -She shook her head. “I—have to—go—for the safety—of my—friends.” - -“Then I shall go with you.” - -“No! No!” - -“Only through the woods. Only to within sight of the house.” - -“The road is guarded.” - -“Yes, I know that. I’ll get my snowshoes. Half a minute. You wait here. -I’ll be back in two ticks.” - -He turned and ran. His rackets were in the woodshed; and he was soon -back with them. But the young woman was not where he had left her. He -went forward, studying the edges of the road. He turned into the Goose -Creek road; and then it wasn’t long before he found where she had jumped -off into a clump of brush. He tightened and tied the thongs of his -snowshoes with eager fingers and followed eagerly on her tracks. - -[Illustration] - - - - - CHAPTER VII - - - THE KNOCKOUT - -Vane came up with her within a mile of the jump-off—and this was closer -than he had hoped for. She neither welcomed nor reproved him, but only -remarked in a noncommittal voice that he had not been long. He passed -ahead of her, to break trail, and saw that she was back-tracking on her -outward course. He tramped in silence, glancing frequently over his -shoulder. Presently he found himself hanging on his stride for her; and -at last she called, “I must rest a minute.” - -He found her a seat among the raking boughs of a deep-drifted blow-down. -Neither of them spoke during the brief rest; and in the forest gloom the -face of each was no more than a blurred mask to the other’s eyes. She -soon stood up and moved on, and again he passed her and led the way. In -places the gloom shut down in absolute dark, with the vague glimmer of -rifts of faint starshine far behind and far ahead. It was in such a -place that he became suddenly aware that she was no longer moving close -after the dragging tails of his rackets. He halted and stood for a few -seconds, listening. He moved back slowly; and soon he came upon her -crouched, sobbing, in the snow. - -“It is my foot, my ankle,” she said in broken and contrite tones. “I -fell and hurt it—before you overtook me.” - -He knelt before her. This was his fault. She had fallen and hurt herself -in trying to escape from him. It would have been kinder of him to have -minded his own business. - -“And you’ve walked all this distance on it!” he exclaimed. “I am a fool! -Which is it? Sprained, do you think, or only a bit of a twist? May I -feel? Let me bandage it or something.” - -“The right,” she said. “I don’t think it’s seriously injured—but it -hurts like anything—and I have to get home before—dawn.” - -“Does that hurt?” - -“Yes, yes!” - -“I’m sorry. But it doesn’t seem to be swollen. Slightly, perhaps. A -strain—I think that’s all. I’ll tie it tight. I have a simply huge -handkerchief here. Just the thing. How does that feel?” - -“Better—much better—thank you. I can go on now—slowly—a little way -at a time.” - -“No, you can’t. The weight of the snowshoe, the lift of it at every -step, would play the mischief with it. I must take your snowshoes off -and carry you.” - -“You must not! It would kill you.” - -“You are not heavy. And this is all my fault. You made this trip to warn -me; and you hurt your ankle running away from me. All my fault—and I -shall be glad to carry you, really.” - -She protested; but he went ahead gently but firmly, removed her -snowshoes from her feet and hung them on her shoulder and then crouched -and hoisted and jolted her into that ancient and practical position for -carrying known as pig-a-back. Doubtless it is more romantic to carry a -lady in distress in your arms, and more dignified to pull her along on a -sled, and even trundling her in a wheelbarrow (wind and weather -permitting) may seem a more conventional way to some people—but every -woodsman and soldier knows that pig-a-back is the style when a job of -this sort has to be done for its own sake. Take the weight, be it -dead-weight or live-weight, on and above the shoulders. Keep under it. -Don’t let it get behind you, dragging your shoulders down and back and -throwing your feet up and forward. This was old stuff to Vane—yes, and -to the girl; so he hitched her as high as he could without the loss of a -steadying back-handed hold on her, stooped forward slightly and went -ahead at a fair pace. - -He didn’t talk; and evidently the young woman had nothing to say. After -a silent mile he halted, and let his load slide gently to the snow at -his heels. They rested side by side. He lit a cigarette. - -“It’s easy,” he said. “We’ll make it handily.” - -“You are very strong,” she said. “And the stronger a man is, the kinder -he should be. You are strong enough, and you should be kind enough, to -let kindness overrule your pride.” - -“Pride? I don’t know what you mean by that, upon my word!” - -“You are not proud?” - -“Certainly not. What of?” - -“I’m glad. Then you’ll go away to-morrow, back to New York.” - -“But I explained all that!” - -“Nothing is keeping you here but your silly pride. You are too proud to -allow people like the Danglers, or a little thing like a threat of -death, to change your plans.” - -“You are wrong. I don’t want to go away, that’s all. I want a horse, and -I’m interested in—in the country. And I can’t believe that the Danglers -would dare to go as far as that even if they were able.” - -“They will think of a way—a safe way. I mean it. I beg you to go away -to-morrow! Think of what life means to you—and those who love you! This -isn’t a war. There would be nothing glorious in death here.” - -“I believe you.” - -“And think of your wife!” - -“I haven’t any—but it would be rough on my mother, I’ll admit.” - -“Rough on her? It would break her heart! And the woman you love—who -loves you—who is waiting for you. Consider her feelings. Doesn’t her -happiness mean anything to you? As much as your pride?” - -Van scratched his chin. - -“I believe there’s a great deal in what you say, but what about your -ankle?” - -“Please don’t be silly. I—this is serious—so serious that—I want to -cry.” - -“Not that, for heaven’s sake! I’ll be sensible. I’ll go away to-morrow. -I’ll eat my pride and all that sort of thing and beat it.” - -“Thank God!” - -“Yes, I see that it is the best thing for me to do—from the point of -view of the people who love me so distractedly. I’ll run away -to-morrow—on one condition. You must promise to keep me in touch with -your ankle.” - -“That is—mean—unworthy of a—man—like you. Making fun. Cheating. I’m -not—joking. I want to—save you—and you think—I’m a fool.” - -“No, no! I’m the fool. I’m not joking. I’ll go away and save my life if -you will promise to let me know about your ankle. How it’s recovering -day by day and that sort of thing. That’s not asking a great deal—in -return for my eating my pride and permitting you to save my life. Now I -am serious. I mean that.” - -“Will you give me your word of honor to go to-morrow if I promise to—to -put your anxiety at rest about my ankle?” - -“Yes.” - -“Then you have my promise.” - -“Good! Please accept my word of honor that I’ll skip out to-morrow. Now -we had better be toddling on our way again. Climb on.” - -“But this isn’t fair—making you carry me. No, it isn’t! It is cheating. -I have your promise—so I’ll keep my promise now. I—my—there isn’t -anything wrong with it.” - -“With what? Your promise? Of course not. Mine is all right too.” - -“I mean—I mean my ankle. There isn’t anything—the matter with my -ankle. I was—only pretending.” - -“Ah! Pretending? I see. At least that is to say I hope to get an eye on -it in a minute. I seem to be unusually dull to-night—this morning. You -didn’t hurt your ankle. Is that what you mean?” - -“Yes. I didn’t hurt it. I didn’t even fall down.” - -“It’s exceedingly amusing—as far as I can see. You got a free ride; and -if you don’t mind, I don’t. But it seems hardly enough to be so -amazingly clever and deep about. The ride is all you gained by it, so -far as I can see.” - -“And your promise.” - -“But what had that to do with—well——” - -“We must hurry.” - -He fastened on her snowshoes and led the way. She kept up with him -easily. He turned his head now and again, as if to speak, only to face -front again in silence. At last she came up beside him and touched his -elbow and asked if he were angry. - -“No,” he answered. “I am doing my best, but I don’t believe you have -done anything for me to be angry about.” - -“I hoped you wouldn’t be. I played a trick on you—but it was for your -own good.” - -“To get me to make you a promise?” - -“Yes.” - -“So tricking me into toting you on my back was part of that scheme?” - -“Yes. I—knew I had to—interest you in myself—so that you would pay -attention to my arguments. I thought that the more trouble I was to -you—well, I _had_ to do something—to——” - -“You did it. I am not angry, but pleased. Do you mind if I ask if you -have always lived in the country around here?” - -“I was away at school for a few years.” - -She dropped behind and silence was resumed. It was maintained for nearly -half an hour; and then she came abreast of him again and halted him with -a hand on his arm. - -“Here we are,” she whispered. “Just through there. Not thirty yards -away. Good night. And you will go to-morrow. So it is good-by.” - -He took both her mittened hands in his and stared hard at her upturned -face, trying to find something there for the discernment of which the -light was insufficient. - -“Good night,” he said in guarded tones. “And good morning; and, as I -must go away to-morrow, to-day, good-by.” - -“Good-by.” - -“But I shall soon be back—for that horse. I promised a horse of that -strain—to a girl. That’s the only thing I’ve ever offered her that she -has accepted—so I can’t fall down on that. But I’ll take precautions.” - -“Please go, and stay away. They won’t sell you a horse. They will kill -you. Good-by.” - -“I’ll chance it—in the hope that you will save my life again.” - -“But I won’t, if you do anything so crazy. Don’t be a fool!” - -She snatched her hands out of his and turned and vanished in the -blackness of crowded firs. - -Vane looked straight up between the black spires of the forest and saw -that the stars were misty. He saw this, but he gave no heed to it. He -wasn’t worrying about the stars. He turned and stepped along on the -track which Joe’s webs had already beaten twice and his once. It was -deep enough to follow easily, heedlessly, despite the gloom. He felt -exalted and exultant. Even his anxiety, which was entirely for the girl, -thrilled him deliciously—such was his faith in himself, and his scorn -of the Danglers. The thought of going away on the morrow did not depress -him. He would soon be back. - -In this high and somewhat muddled mood he might easily have passed an -elephant in the blackness of the wood without sensing it. As it was, he -passed nothing more alarming or unusual than poor Pete Sledge. Pete did -nothing to attract the other’s notice, and took to the shadows behind -him with no more sound than the padded paws of a hunting lynx. - -This was a little game that had grown dear to Pete’s heart of late -years. Natural talent and much practice had made him amazingly -proficient at it. What he did not know of the bodily activities of -Robert Vane and Joe Hinch during the past few hours was not much; and it -may be that he suspected something of what was going on in their heads -and hearts. He had wanted to chuckle, had been on the very verge of it, -at the sight of the stranger carrying the artful young woman on his -back—for he had known that there was nothing wrong with her ankle. - -Vane had covered more than half of the homeward journey at a moderate -rate of speed when he became conscious of the light touch of a snowflake -on his face. He was not particularly interested, but for lack of -something better to do he halted and looked straight up again. The high -stars were veiled. Large, moist flakes fell slowly. He produced a -cigarette and lit it, considering the effect of a heavy snowfall on his -plans for the immediate future. The effect was nil, so far as he could -see. Which shows how little he knew about his immediate future. - -He resumed his journey at a slightly better pace, planning the morrow’s -departure to the nearest town and the best manner of his quickest -possible return. He would take precautions of the Danglers, as he had -promised, but he must avoid involving the law if he could think of a -way. Why not bring a bodyguard back with him, and thus supported, beard -the—! Hell! * * * He pitched forward at the blow, fumbling for an -inner pocket even as he fell. But he hadn’t a chance. He was jumped, -pounded deep in the snow, bound at wrists and ankles, gagged and -blindfolded. He was yanked out roughly and turned over; and that was all -for a few minutes. He heard a shrill whistle from close at hand, and the -softened answer; and then, for a little while, he was left undisturbed -on his back. His nose and chin were exposed, and on these he felt the -snowflakes falling faster and faster. He was slightly dizzy and slightly -nauseated, but his mind was clear. His thick fur cap had saved him from -a knockout. He was not in pain, though his discomfort was considerable; -and he was angry enough to bite. The Danglers had him, he knew—and here -was just and sufficient cause for rage. The Danglers had tricked -him—and here was cause for shame. He had been guilty of military error -as old as warfare: he had underrated the enemy. He was a fool! No wonder -the girl had been afraid for him. - -Presently he felt a fumbling at the thongs of his snowshoes. The -snowshoes were removed. He felt a pair of hands under his shoulders, -another pair at his knees, and he was lifted and carried. He strained -his ears to catch a voice, but in vain. He was roughly handled—bumped -and dragged. It was quite evident to him that his captors were in a -hurry to get him to some particular spot, but it seemed that they were -utterly indifferent as to his condition upon arrival. They carried him -feet first; and frequently the leader got completely away from the other -and his head and shoulders were dropped with a smothering thump. - -Brief rests were frequent. Where the underbrush was awkwardly dense, he -was simply dragged along by the feet. Now and then he caught a whiff of -strong tobacco smoke; and later he caught a whiff of ardent spirits. -After many minutes of this, or perhaps an hour—for with so many bumps -and thumps he found it useless to attempt the reckoning of the passage -of time—and after a less brief halt than usual, his webs were replaced -and his ankles were freed, and he was stood upon his feet. For a moment -he contemplated the advisability of delivering a few blind kicks—but -before he had arrived at a decision he was pushed from the rear and -flanks. He staggered forward to save himself from falling on his face; -and before that initial stagger was completed another well-timed and -well-placed thrust sent him staggering again; and then another—and thus -the journey was continued. - -Vane found walking, even with tied hands and bandaged eyes, pleasanter -than being carried like a sack of oats. But this did not improve his -temper. The gag hurt him, and that nerve-racking experience of advancing -blindly against underbrush without any protection for the face maddened -him more and more desperately at every step. And to be forced to it! To -be thumped and thrust along from behind! An unusually violent poke with -something exceedingly hard—the butt of a rifle, most likely—put the -last straw on the over-strained back of his discretion. He turned with -his right leg drawn up and shot out his right foot with every ounce that -was in him, snowshoe and all. The blind blow landed. A yowl went up and -someone went down. He jumped and landed on his mark, stamped twice with -all his weight, then turned and jumped away. He missed his objective, -the other Dangler, by a few inches that time, and received a bang on the -ear for his trouble. But he tried again—and again—and once more. He -fought furiously. He was blindfolded and his hands were tied behind him, -but he came within an ace of victory. Despite the odds against him, four -minutes transpired between his first jump and his last. - -When he recovered consciousness he was again being carried and dragged. -After a long time and many drops he was stood on his feet again and -hustled along. After as much of that as he could stand up to, he fell -and refused to arise. From that to the finish he was dragged, with an -occasional lift over a blow-down or some other natural obstruction too -high to take in an straight pull. He lost consciousness again before the -end of that desperate and humiliating journey. - -When he came to himself the second time it was to find the gag gone from -his mouth, the bandage gone from his eyes, and his hands tied before him -instead of behind him. He was on a floor of poles beneath a broken roof -of poles and bark. Flashing snowflakes and a flood of desolate gray -light fell through the hole in the roof. There was a hillock of snow -beneath the rent, and there were little drifts of it elsewhere blown -under and past the warped door. The door was shut; and nothing was to be -seen of the men who had brought him here, and he could catch no sound of -them from without, and there was no sign of them within except the -tracks of rackets on the snowy floor. He wondered dully at the meaning -of these things. He was dizzy, faint, and parched with thirst. He sat up -painfully and rested his shoulders against the wall. - -The door opened and a snow-whitened figure entered on snow-weighted -rackets. He halted and peered around at the gloomy corners of the hut. -It was Joe Hinch, but Vane didn’t believe his eyes. So he closed his -eyes and made an effort of will toward the clearing and steadying of his -brain, and wrenched desperately at the cords with which his wrists were -bound. The cords loosened easily. His right hand came free and then his -left. But still he kept his eyes closed. - -His idea was that what he had seen was either a vision created by his -own battered head or a reality transformed by his aching eyes. If it -were nothing but a vision, well and good. If it should prove to be a -reality, then the chances were that it was one of his enemies, in which -case he would sit perfectly motionless until the last moment, and -then—well, his hands were free now! He didn’t feel up to a fight—but, -by the Lord, he would put up a fight! So he kept his eyes closed and his -ears open. - -He heard a low cry, a sob, a quick pad and clatter of rackets on the -snow-streaked floor, a movement close beside him and quick, half-choked -breathing. He felt a hand on his face, light and searching and tender. -It was a small hand. An arm slipped behind him and his head was drawn to -the hollow of a snowy shoulder. But it was a soft shoulder. Then he -opened his eyes. His eyes had been right the first time. He could not -see her face now, for it was pressed against his cheek. He could see -only a strand of dark, snow-powdered hair like a veil close across his -vision. He no longer doubted. - -She was praying—whispering a prayer against his cheek. - -“Don’t die,” she whispered. “Dear God, don’t let him die! Don’t let him -die!” - -He trembled slightly. His arms were free though benumbed. He slipped one -around her. He attempted to speak, but could not articulate a single -word. He managed nothing better than a faint sigh. She drew gently back -from him, still crouched and kneeling and not quite out of the embrace -of his numbed arm, and looked into his face. She looked into his eyes. -There were tears on her cheeks—tears and melted snowflakes. - -“Thank God!” she whispered; and then she moved back from him and stood -up and turned away. She raised both hands to her face. - -Vane moistened his dry lips. - -“They bagged me,” he said. “But what’s their game? And where are we? And -how did you get here?” - -She came back to him and knelt again, smiling tremulously and dabbing at -her eyes with wet fingers. - -“I tried to overtake you,” she said. “I didn’t go home—only to the -door—and then I turned back. I felt that—I had been—rude. And I was -afraid. But I couldn’t catch up to you before—you were attacked. They -were carrying you when I got near. I followed them all the way, and hid -until they went away from here. I knew they wouldn’t kill you. I knew -they would leave you to die—lost—helpless—starved. See these!” - -She lifted his snowshoes from the floor for his inspection. The tough -webbing was torn hopelessly from both frames. - -[Illustration] - - - - - CHAPTER VIII - - - THE RAID - -The sun was up when Pete Sledge knocked on the kitchen door of Moosehead -House. The door was locked. He knocked with his knuckles, then with a -stick of stove-wood. It was Jard who at last unlocked and yanked open -the door, but Miss Hassock wasn’t far behind him. - -“What the devil?” cried Jard; and then, in milder tones, “So it’s -yourself, Pete! Glad to see you, but what’s your hurry so early in the -mornin’?” - -“They got ’im!” exclaimed Pete. “They’ve got the stranger—them -Danglers. I seen it, so I come a-jumpin’.” - -“What’s that? Who? What stranger? Come along in here an’ set down an’ -tell it right.” - -“The sport. The lad with the trick pants. The feller who drug Joe Hinch -out of bed the night of the fire. That’s who. I seen it.” - -“Vane? Yer crazy! He’s in bed in this house, or if he ain’t he’d ought -to be.” - -“You’d better go see,” said Miss Hassock, turning to the stove and -setting a match to the kindlings. - -Jard ran. Pete sat down. Jard returned at top speed. - -“He ain’t there!” he cried. “What was that you said, Pete? When did it -happen? What did they do with him?” - -“They picked him up, but I didn’t wait. Reckon they’re totin’ him back -to Goose Crick this very minute. That’s where they’ll hide him—till -they think up some slick way of losin’ him in the woods.” - -“Say, Pete, you got this all straight now, have you? You ain’t been -dreamin’ or nothin’ like that?” - -“Don’t be a fool, Jard Hassock!” exclaimed Liza. “You got to do -something now—simply got to—you and every man in this village. If you -don’t, there’ll be murder done. Go tell the McPhees, and the Joneses and -the Browns and the Wickets and the Haywards and the McKims and old man -Pike—the whole bunch. Get your guns and pistols and light out for the -Crick with a couple of teams quick’s the Lord’ll let you! But send -Charlie McPhee, or some other lad with a fast horse, to Jim Bell’s to -fetch him along too—and tell him to tell Jim to telephone over to -Lover’s Glen for the deputy-sheriff. I’ll have coffee ready when you get -back, Pete, you go too and help Jard stir ’em up. It’s got to be done -this time, Jard—done and done for good and all—so it’s no use you -scratchin’ your nose about it.” - -“Reckon ye’re right, Liza,” admitted Jard reluctantly, “if Pete ain’t -mistaken. But durn that Vane! Out runnin’ the woods all night, hey! -Couldn’t he wait? Couldn’t he keep still till I’d thought out a way? Why -the hell couldn’t he’ve let sleepin’ dogs lay?” - -“Get out!” cried Liza. “Tell us that to-night. I’ll load your gun while -you’re gone to scare up the men. Scare’s right.” - -Half an hour later, Charlie McPhee set out in a red pung, behind a -sorrel mare, for Jim Bell’s place a few miles below the village. Mr. -Bell was the nearest constable. Half an hour after that again, two sleds -set out for the Dangler settlement on Goose Creek. Each sled was drawn -by a pair of horses, and crowded with men armed with many kinds and -patterns of explosive weapons in their pockets and their hands. Snow was -falling thick and soft and steady. There was not a breath of wind. The -bells had been removed from the harness of both teams. The men whispered -together, and peered nervously ahead and around into the glimmering, -blinding veils of the snow. They spoke with lowered voices before the -top of the hill was reached, as if those dangerous Danglers could hear -their usual conversational tone across a distance of seven miles. They -were not keen on their errand, not even the most daring and independent -of them—but Liza Hassock had driven them to it. Liza had talked of -murder, disgrace, and cowardice. She had threatened the most reluctant -with ridicule, the law and even physical violence. She had sneered and -jeered. - -“I know your reasons for hanging back,” she had cried. “I know what’s at -the bottom of all this ‘live and let live’ slush you’ve been handing -out. One’s a reason of the heart—and that’s saying you’re afraid of the -Danglers, that you’re cowards! An t’other is a reason of the gullet. Oh, -I know! Now I’ll tell you men straight what’s going to happen if you -don’t all crowd up to Goose Crick and save Mr. Vane. I’ll go to -Fredricton, and if that’s not far enough I’ll go to Ottawa, and I’ll put -such a crimp into that gin-mill up to Goose Crick that you’ll all be -back to drinking lemon extract again, including Deacon Wicket. That’s -what will happen! That will fix the moonshining Danglers, and then -you’ll have to go farther and pay more for your liquor. That’ll fix -’em!—the whole b’ilin’ of them; murderers and moonshiners and -bootleggers and all!” - -Liza had won. Even Deacon Wicket had joined the rescue party with a -double-barrelled shotgun. - -Jard Hassock drove the leading team. The big, mild horses jogged along -without a suspicion of the significance of their errand. Perhaps they -wondered mildly why so numerous a company rode each ample sled—but it -isn’t likely. Certain it is that they did not so much as guess that they -were taking part in an historic event, lending their slow muscles and -big feet to the breaking of a century-old tyranny, bumping forward -through the obscuring snow to the tragedy that was to flash the modest -names of Forkville and Goose Creek before the eyes of the world. Well, -what they didn’t know, or even suspect, didn’t hurt them. Perhaps they -missed the cheery jangle of their bells, and so sensed something unusual -in their morning’s task—but if so they showed no sign of it. - -The leading team drew up at the nearest Dangler farmhouse and the second -team passed on silently toward the second house. Jard opened the kitchen -door, and beheld Jerry Dangler and his wife and children at table eating -buckwheat pancakes. - -“Seen anything of a stranger round here named Vane?” asked Jard. - -“Nope,” replied Jerry. “Never heard tell of him. What’s he done?” - -“He’s got himself in a nasty mess, an’ there’s a bunch of us out -a-lookin’ for him. He’s been hit on the head an’ drug away somewheres. -We got to hunt through your house an’ barn, Jerry.” - -“Go to it. You won’t find no stranger here. I’ll show you round the -barns.” - -“You set right there an’ go ahead with your breakfast, Jerry. Sammy, you -keep an eye on him, and see that he don’t disturb himself. Hold your gun -like this. That’s right. But don’t shoot onless you got to. Hunt around, -boys. Four of you out to the barn. Upstairs, some of you.” - -Pete Sledge was not in evidence among the searchers. He had slipped from -the sled and vanished into the murk of snowfall, all unnoticed, just -before the house had been reached. - -The first farmstead was searched without success. The men of the second -team drew a blank at the second house. Jard and his crew drove on to the -third house of the settlement. There he found a Dangler with two grownup -sons and a hang-over; and but for his firmness there would have been a -fight. - -“We got you cold, boys,” said Jard. “We mean business. Set still an’ be -good or there’ll maybe be a funeral you ain’t figgerin’ on.” - -The retort of the householders sounded bad, but there was nothing else -to it. Young McPhee and the constable drove up at about this time. The -snow was still spinning down moist and thick through the windless air. -The searchers went from house to house, appearing suddenly out of the -blind gray and white weather at the very door, as unexpected as -unwelcome. No warning passed ahead of them. Even old Luke Dangler was -caught in his sock-feet, smoking beside the kitchen stove, all unbraced -and unready. When he realized the nature of Jard’s visit and the -futility of physical resistance, the swift darkening of his eyes and the -graying pucker of his mouth were daunting things to behold. He denied -all knowledge of the whereabouts or fate of the stranger. He denied it -with curses which caused profound uneasiness to the spirits of several -of Forkville’s substantial citizens. Doubts assailed them as to the -soundness of Miss Hassock’s judgment and the wisdom of their course. -They wondered if the life of any one stranger could possibly be worth -the risk they were taking. They and their fathers had put up with the -habits and customs of the Danglers of Goose Creek for over one hundred -years. This attitude had acquired the dignity of a tradition. Was it -wise to break with tradition now on the question of whether or not a -stranger in trick pants and a fancy mackinaw were dead or alive? - -Nothing of Vane was discovered on or about old Luke’s premises. Then the -deputy sheriff of the county appeared suddenly in the midst of the -searchers. He drew Jard Hassock aside and asked for a description of the -missing stranger. Jard complied; and the official nodded his head -alertly. - -“That’s him, for sure,” he said. “The gent from Ottawa. I’ve been kinder -expectin’ him down this way a long time. Big man. One of the biggest. We -got to find him, Jard—an’ what he come lookin’ for, too. This is -serious. Old Luke Dangler guessed right.” - -“Not on your life he didn’t! I know Vane. He’s half New York an’ half -London. He come to buy a horse of the old Eclipse strain of blood.” - -“Say, you’re easy! You don’t know the big fellers, Jard. Maybe’s he’s -from New York and London, but that don’t say he ain’t from Ottawa, too. -This outfit’s been picked to be made a horrible example of, that’s -what—so I reckon it’s about time for me to start in doin’ my duty.” - -So the deputy sheriff, fired with professional zeal which burned all the -more fiercely now for having so long lain dormant, searched for more -than the missing stranger, while the constable and the men of Forkville -stood guard over the men of Goose Creek. The hog-house had only one -chimney—but the deputy sheriff discovered a secret door, and a second -lead running into that chimney, and a distillery at the foot of the -second lead. Not content with that, he went ahead and found whisky from -Quebec in the haymows. - -Old Luke Dangler was handcuffed. His tough old heart came within an ace -of clicking off with rage at the indignity of it. The firearms from all -the houses of the settlement were confiscated. The men were counted and -the tally was found to be two short. Henry Dangler and his son Steve -were missing. Everyone denied all knowledge of their whereabouts. More -than this, the young woman called Joe could not be found. When old Luke -was questioned about her, he answered with inarticulate snarls of his -gray lips and a flicker of derision and hate from his darkened eyes. - -The leaders were in old Luke’s house, and the crowd stood in front of -it, with sentries posted all around it. Amos Dangler stood in the door, -jeering. Snow continued to spin down from the low gray clouds. - -“We got to find Vane,” said Jard Hassock. “They’ve drug him back -somewhere—to lose him. That’s your old game, Amos. I don’t give a damn -about this rum, but we got to find the stranger.” - -“My game!” sneered Amos. “You say so now, do you—an’ scart to open yer -mouth for nigh onto twenty years!” - -“And what about Joe,” queried one of the McPhees. “I reckon she’s the -one we’re worryin’ about.” - -“She’s run back to old Dave Hinch, that’s what she’s done,” said Jard. -“Nobody’s tryin’ to lose her. But it’s good night to Vane if we don’t -find him before dark. We’d best scatter an’ hunt the woods. I know their -dirty, sneakin’ tricks.” - -“What do you know, Jard Hassock?” asked Amos, stepping from the doorway -and advancing slowly upon the proprietor of Moosehead House. “You’ve -found yer tongue all of a suddent, hey? Well, it’s a dirty tongue—an’ I -don’t like it—an’ I’m a-goin’ to knock it down yer dirty throat, along -with yer teeth.” - -“Now that’s fightin’ talk,” said Jard. - -“There’ll be no fightin’ here, Amos Dangler!” exclaimed the constable. -“You git back there into the house, Amos—an’ you keep quiet, Jard. The -law’ll do all the fightin’ that’s got to be done.” - -Men closed in upon the angry voices, hoping that Amos and Jard might -clash with fists and teeth despite the professional attitude of the -constable. They wanted to see a fight. They saw more than enough of that -sort of thing to last them a lifetime. - -Pete Sledge appeared from the obscurity of the weaving snow. He had been -forgotten by all. He jumped in between Jard Hassock and Amos Dangler. He -had an axe in his hands. Amos retreated a step. - -“My God! Didn’t I kill you once, long ago?” cried Pete. - -“In yer eye,” sneered Amos, fumbling at the front of his coat with an -unmittened hand. “It’s daytime, you poor nut! Run home to bed.” - -“But I killed you!” - -“Maybe—in yer mind.” - -Pete’s arms twitched even as Amos Dangler’s right hand came away from -the front of his coat. The axe flew even as the automatic pistol spat a -red jab of flame. The axe struck and the pistol spat again in the same -instant of time. Dangler staggered backward and screamed before he fell, -but poor Pete Sledge dropped without a sound. That was the end of that -old trouble—unless it has been continued elsewhere, beyond the field of -vision of Forkville and Goose Creek. - - - - - CHAPTER IX - - - THE WAY OUT - -Far away in the broken hut in the snow-blinded forest, Robert Vane gazed -in perplexity at the useless webs which Joe held up for his inspection. - -“How did I do that?” he asked. “I don’t remember anything of that sort.” - -“You didn’t do it,” she answered. “It was done by the Danglers—my -relatives.” - -“But I don’t understand. And why did they leave me here—with the cord -at my wrists so loose that I slipped my hands free? Why didn’t they do -me in for keeps, if they feel that way about me?” - -The girl let her snowshoes fall with a clatter. - -“They did for you,” she said. “They knew nothing about me. When they -tore the webbing they killed you as surely as if they had cut your -throat—as far as they knew. You have no compass, no food, no matches, -no blankets, no snowshoes—nothing. You are weak—for they have hurt -you. You are lost—and the snow is deep and still falling. You are lost. -They lost you.” - -“I see. You have saved my life.” - -“I know the way out; and I have matches, but nothing to eat—and nothing -to mend your rackets with.” - -“How far is it?” - -“About seven miles to the nearest clearing—by the right way. By any -other way—hundreds of miles! But I know the right one.” - -“Seven miles. That’s not far. Two hours—or so. When shall we start? But -you must be tired out. Of course you are!” - -“I don’t believe I’d know the marks in this storm. It will thin up in a -few hours, I think. Are you feeling better?” - -“Right as rain,” he said, scrambling to his feet. He staggered a step, -stood swaying and propped an arm to the nearest wall for support. He -misjudged the distance, or the length of his arm, and would have fallen -but for her. She sprang to him, embraced him and eased him to the floor. -“But still a trifle dizzy,” he added. - -She crouched beside him, with a shoulder to steady him, but with her -face averted. - -“Any chance of their returning to see how I am doing?” he asked. - -She shook her head. “They are too clever for that,” she replied. “They -will go to the village, and then home. People will see them and talk to -them. They have traveled away from here as fast as they could, and left -everything to—to nature.” - -“But a man doesn’t starve to death in a few hours, nor in a few days. -Suppose I simply sat here until a search-party found me?” - -“Alone? As they intended. Without fire? You would freeze to death before -a search-party was thought of.” - -He felt in all his pockets. “That’s right,” he said. “All my matches are -gone, and my pistol and ammunition—but they’ve left my cigarettes. -Without a single match, confound them! But what if I had struck right -out and happened on the right way? That would have upset their -calculations, I imagine.” - -“The snow is deep; to your hips, in places—and deeper. Even if you -happened on the right way, and happened to keep it in this storm—which -could not be—you would have no chance. Weak, and without help, and -without a fire to rest by! You could not travel half of seven miles. But -I have matches; and I know the way. I can help you.” - -“I need help, heaven knows!” he said. “And I’m glad it is you.” - -After a silence of several seconds she replied, “I’m glad, too.” - -She left him, gathered some old boughs from a bunk, tore strips of bark -from the logs of the wall and made a fire on the rough hearth. She tore -poles from the fallen patch of roof, broke the smaller of them, and fed -them to the fire. She helped him over to a corner near the hearth and -gave him a match for his cigarette. She had plenty of matches, a large -jack-knife and hairpins in her pockets. - -“I can stand a lot of this,” said Vane. “The men who thought they could -kill me this way are fools.” - -Joe searched about the hut, found a rusty tin kettle at last and went -out into the spinning snow. Vane felt a chill, whether physical or -spiritual he did not know, the moment the warped door closed between -them. He got to his feet, moved unsteadily and painfully to the door and -pulled it open. He saw her through the veils of the snow descending the -cleared slope before the hut and watched the slender figure until it -melted into a dark screen of alders. His legs and arms ached; his ribs -and head were sore; and his throat ached and his lips were parched; but -his heart was elated. - -She returned with the kettle full of chips of ice which she had hacked -from the surface of the brook with her knife. She melted this at the -fire and cooled it in the heap of snow under the break in the roof. They -drank it together, turn and turn about. Vane felt much better for it. - -“It’s queer to think that you wasted all that game with your ankle,” he -said. “All that effort to make me promise to run away—all that -successful effort—thrown away!” - -“And worse than thrown away,” she answered. “If I hadn’t done that -perhaps you would not have been ambushed.” - -“I am glad you tricked me into carrying you on my back,” he returned -gravely. “I don’t regret the ambush, the bump on the head, the thumps -and kicks—anything. The fact is——” - -“I wonder if you promised a horse to that young lady?” she interrupted. - -“I did. How did you guess? And her brother bet a thousand dollars I -wouldn’t find anything of the blood of Eclipse in these woods. But all -that doesn’t matter. It all seems rather idiotic to me now. The real -meaning of all this—of my coming to this country—is—well, I struck -town just in time to pull you out of a fire, didn’t? And I didn’t even -stop to take a look at what I had saved! Good Lord! And now you are -saving my life; and even horses of the blood of Eclipse don’t seem so -important to me now. It can’t be just chance that——” - -“Aren’t you forgetting something?” - -“No fear! I haven’t forgotten a word you have said, nor a single——” - -“But your mother—and the woman you promised the horse to!” - -“I shall give her the horse, if I get it. But it doesn’t matter much, -either way.” - -“You asked her to be your wife.” - -“Twice, I believe—but she said she wouldn’t.” - -“She wouldn’t! Why?” - -“Why should she? I’m poor.” - -“Poor? And yet you wagered one thousand dollars that you’d find a horse -of a certain strain of blood up here in these woods!” - -“A sporting bet; and I have a thousand.” - -“But you love her.” - -“You are wrong. I thought I did, once or twice—or thought I thought I -did. It was all a matter of thinking, as I see it now. But it doesn’t -matter. Do you—are you—do you love someone?” - -“What?” - -“Do you love somebody?” - -“I think—yes.” - -“Think? Don’t you know?” - -“Yes—I know.” - -“Are you happy about it?” - -“I don’t know.” - -“Is it wise?” - -“I—I don’t think so. I’m sure it is not.” - -“Good God! That fellow who came to see me! That—that——” - -“What do you mean?” - -“Steve Dangler.” - -“Do you mean that? Do you think I love Steve Dangler?” - -“But haven’t you just said so?” - -She shook her head and turned her face away. - -“Forgive me, please,” he whispered. “It’s your duty to forgive me, don’t -you know—for I saved your life and you are saving mine. Joe, please -look at me. It is your own fault that I—well, why did you pretend to -hurt your ankle? Is it fair to walk miles and miles after a man in the -woods at night, to save his life, and then to be angry with him for—for -telling you the truth?” - -“What truth have you told me?” she asked unsteadily, still with averted -face. - -“You are the dearest person in the world! You are the——” - -She got swiftly and lightly to her feet, crossed to the door and opened -it, then stood looking out. Vane sighed. Presently the girl turned, but -she did not look at him. - -“It is thinning,” she said. “I think we had better make a start now. It -is clear enough for me to see the landmarks.” - -She fastened on her rackets, and picked up the rusty kettle. Vane -buttoned his outer coat, drew on his mittens, pulled his cap down about -his ears and hoisted himself to his feet. “I’m ready,” he said. - -The girl stepped out into the thinning snowfall, glanced back, glanced -around, then moved off slowly. Vane followed. He stepped from the -threshold and sank to his knees. His next step sank deeper. He plunged -ahead, conscious of a protest from every bone in his body. But that did -not dismay him. He had lifted his feet before against protests. His head -felt clear now, and that was a great thing; and his heart felt like a -strong engine in perfect running order. As for his bones, he was sure -that none of them was broken. So he plowed forward in the tracks of the -girl’s narrow webs. - -They descended the little clearing, and entered the screen of alders -along the brook. The snow took him to the hips there, and deeper. He -plunged, stuck, plunged again and plowed through. The girl turned and -watched his efforts for a few seconds with veiled eyes, then turned to -her front again, and passed across the brook. Vane staggered in the -shallower snow of the brook, fell to his hands and knees and came up -again in a flash. He set his teeth and struggled forward. Halfway up the -opposite bank he stuck fast. He struggled without a word. It was no use; -so he rested, without a word. Joe came back to him and, without looking -at him, took his hands and pulled him forward. He seconded her efforts -ably, and was soon through that drift. She withdrew one hand from his -grasp, but he kept hold of the other. - -“I was afraid you had changed your mind,” he said. - -“So I have,” she answered coolly. - -“Surely not! You came back and pulled me out. You still mean to save my -life, evidently.” - -“Oh, that! Yes, I’ll save your life”—and she snatched her hand away. - -Vane followed again. His heart didn’t feel so high now. In fact, it felt -far worse than his knees and shoulders and ribs. He thought back and -wondered at his dear companion of the hut as if at some beautiful -experience of his childhood. He made one hundred yards, two hundred, -two-fifty, before striking another drift. He struggled with the drift in -a desperate silence. He got halfway through. She turned and came back to -him. - -“I’m all right,” he said. “With you in two ticks.” - -She searched for his hands, but his were not extended in response. She -came closer and pulled at his shoulders. - -“I can manage it, thanks all the same,” he said. - -“But you know you can’t!” she cried. - -He squirmed free of her hands and clear of the drift, leaving her behind -him. But her tracks were still in front for a distance of twenty yards -or more; so he plowed his way onward without a backward glance. She ran -past him and again led the way. He followed—but he fell at last, all -in. He felt her arms, her hands. She was trying to raise him from the -smothering snow. He pulled himself to his knees. - -“I can do it—thanks,” he said. “I must rest—a minute.” - -He didn’t look at her. - -“Now take my hands,” she said, after a few minutes of silence and -inaction. - -“I can manage it, thanks all the same,” he said. - -“But you can’t! You must let me help you!” - -“No, thanks.” - -“But—what else can you do?” - -“The other thing—whatever it is.” - -“Don’t be a fool!” - -“Why not?” - -“Then I shall light a fire.” - -“I’m warm enough, thank you, but if you’ll give me a few of your matches -I’ll be tremendously obliged.” - -She gave him matches without a glance, and then went away. He lit a -cigarette. Presently she reappeared, carrying bark and dry brush. She -dug a hole in the snow and lit a fire at the bottom of it. Using a -racket for a shovel, she enlarged the hole around the fire into a -considerable hollow. - -“It is turning colder,” she said. “You must come in here until you are -rested.” - -He obeyed slowly, painfully. She placed a few green fir boughs for him -to sit on, and a few beside him for herself. - -“It has almost stopped snowing,” she said. “If a wind comes up it will -drift frightfully, and that will be worse than the snowfall.” - -“How far have we come?” he asked. - -“Nearly a mile,” she answered. - -“I wish you would go on alone,” he said. “Without me you’d do it before -the wind rises; and then, if you should happen to see Jard Hassock or -someone who wouldn’t mind coming back for me, he’d find me waiting right -here—if it isn’t too much trouble.” - -“Trouble!” she cried, turning a stricken, outraged look at him; and then -she hid her face in her hands and shook with sobs. - -He slipped an arm around her. - -“Why did you turn on me?” he asked. “In the hut you were—very kind. Why -did you change—and treat me like a dog?” - -She continued to hide her face and sob. His arm tightened. - -“I said you were the dearest person in the world,” he continued. “You -are—to me. You are the dearest person in the world.” - -“You—have no right—to say that.” - -“Then whoever has a right to stop me had better make haste. I love you, -Joe! Make the worst of that. I love you! Now run away and leave me -sticking here in the snow.” - -“But—the woman who sent you—after a horse?” - -“Bless her for that! She was kinder to me than she intended to be. Look -at me, Joe.” - -She looked at him. - -[Illustration] - - - - - CHAPTER X - - - DEEP TRAILS - -They put a mile and a half between that fire and the next. Vane was no -longer weakening. He was strengthening in heart, muscles and spirit -gradually but steadily, despite the drag of the snow on his legs and a -decided sense of neglect under his belt. He was working back to the pink -of condition, throwing off at every forward step something of the -effects of his difficult journey with the Danglers. He was recovering by -those very efforts which his enemies had reckoned on to work his -undoing. But the young woman was tiring. It was Vane who gathered fuel -and cleared away the snow and built the third fire. They rested there -for twenty minutes, seated close together. She snuggled her head against -his shoulder and slept a little. - -The snowfall had ceased by that time, the close gray blanket of cloud -had thinned everywhere, had been lifted from the horizon at one corner, -and now a desolate and subdued illumination seeped across the white and -black world. The air, still motionless, was now dry and bitterly cold. - -During the third stage of their homeward journey, Joe dragged her -snowshoes heavily, and her pulls on Vane’s hands became feebler at every -drift. She was sleepy, bone-tired and weak with hunger. Backwoods girl -though she was, she was not seasoned to hardship as was her companion. -But she continued to recognize the landmarks of the right way. - -Their halts and little fires fell more and more frequently and closer -and closer together. At last a bitter lash of wind struck and sent a -thin wisp of snow glinting and running like spray. They came upon a -narrow wood road well beaten by hoofs and bob-sled shoes beneath the -four-inch skim of new snow. - -“Which way?” asked Vane. - -She pointed. “Straight to Larry Dent’s place,” she said. - -Then he removed her webs, crouched and hitched her up on his back. She -made no protest. “This is how I save your life,” she said, and instantly -closed her eyes in sleep. Her arms were about his neck. They clung tight -even in her sleep. Her cheek was against his ear. He staggered several -times, but he hadn’t far to go. As he reached the kitchen door—the only -door—of Larry Dent’s little gray habitation, an icy wind swooped down -from the shuddering treetops and filled the whole world with a white -suffocation of snow. He pushed open the door, staggered across the -threshold, and stumbled to his knees at the large feet of the -dumbfounded Mrs. Dent, with his precious burden still secure and asleep -on his back. - -“See what’s blew in,” said Larry, who was seated beside the stove -smoking his pipe. “Shet the door,” he added. - -Joe awoke and slipped from Vane’s shoulders. Vane remained on hands and -knees, breathing deep. Mrs. Dent pulled herself together, went over, and -shut the door against the flying drift. Larry shook the ashes from his -pipe, and said. “Glad to see you, Miss Hinch; an’ also yer friend—or is -he a hoss?” - -Then Joe began to laugh and cry; and, still laughing and crying, she ran -to Vane and helped him into a rocking chair, and kissed him again and -again right there in front of the Dents. - -Having left the stranger in the hut with the broken roof, bruised and -unconscious and fatigued, without food or water or blankets or matches -or snowshoes, in complete ignorance of the one right way of a hundred -wrong ones of escape from that place, Henry Dangler and his big son -Steve made straight for Forkville. The snow blotted out their tracks -behind them. They visited half a dozen places in the village, including -two stores, the forge and the hotel, and were puzzled to encounter only -women and children. They asked where the men had gone to, and were -puzzled by the answers of the women and children. - -“There’s somethin’ wrong,” said Hen. - -“It sure looks like it,” agreed Steve. “That dang old Hassock woman had -a mean slant to her eye.” - -They headed for the settlement on Goose Creek with a growing uneasiness -in their tough breasts. They took the road, for it was the shortest way. -The new snow had filled up the tracks of the sleds and also of the pung -in which young McPhee had brought the constable. They hadn’t gone far -before they were startled by a jangle of silvery bells close behind -them, sounding suddenly out of the muffling now. They leapt aside into -the underbrush and crouched and turned. They saw a large man, white as -wool, slip by in a pung behind a long-gaited nag. He was there and past -in a dozen seconds. He had sat hunched forward as if bowed by the weight -of snow on him. He had not looked to the right or the left. - -“The deputy sheriff,” whispered Henry to his son. - -“Hell!” whispered Steve. - -“Guess we were too late.” - -“Guess so. What’ll we do now?” - -“Reckon I’ll go along an’ see what’s happened. Maybe the old man will -trick ’em yet.” - -“You best come back with me, pa. I jist thought of somethin’ that’ll -maybe work out all right.” - -“Back where to? What you thought of, Steve?” - -“Back to where we left that feller, an’ save his blasted life! He ain’t -seen us, nor heard our voices. He don’t know who beaned ’im and drug ’im -around. Let’s go back an’ save his damn life and git in right with him.” - -“No use, Steve! He’d be lost an’ froze dead before we could git -there—even if we could find him. He’s the kind will bust right out of -the hut the minute he gits his wits back—right out into the storm on -his busted rackets—an’ git to runnin’ around in a circle inside ten -minutes. That’s his kind. Mind how he jumped us, an’ him tied an’ -blindfolded? A fightin’ fool! When he sticks in a drift he’ll tear the -woods to pieces—an’ himself. We’d be too late, Steve. Reckon we best -forgit all about that business. Reckon we’re in for trouble enough -without goin’ back an’ foolin’ around that section of the woods.” - -“I guess he won’t—I guess he’s tougher’n you figger on. I’m goin’ back, -anyhow.” - -So Steve headed back for the hut with the broken roof by the shortest -way through the blinding curtains of moist snow. Steve was a smart -woodsman under normal conditions—but now the conditions were not -normal. Never before had he traveled far in so thick a fall of snow. -Never before had he undertaken a journey alone with panic in his heart -and doubt in his mind. He had gone a mile before being conscious of the -panic and the doubt. After that, they grew with devilish rapidity. - -Steve didn’t find the hut wherein he and his father had left the -stranger. He didn’t come within miles of it. At last the snow ceased to -fall; and soon after that—or was it an hour after?—he came upon a hole -in the snow and the ashes and black sticks of a spent fire in the bottom -of the hole. The ashes were still warm. These things puzzled and -frightened him. He gave up all thought of finding the hut. He walked for -a long time, walked meaningless miles, beneath a clearing sky, looking -for familiar landmarks. Suddenly a bitter wind swooped down and filled -earth and sky with flying snow. - -Mrs. Dent put Joe to bed. The girl fell into a deep sleep—but she woke -up a little later for long enough to drink and eat from a bountiful tray -and answer a few of Mrs. Dent’s eager and illuminating questions. Robert -Vane took a few snatches of sleep in the rocking chair, and talked and -smoked and drank tea between naps. He answered questions as they came, -without thought or care. He felt fine. He loved the whole world, but -this part of it more than the rest of it. And when supper was ready he -pulled his chair up to the table, and drank coffee as if he had never -heard of tea, and ate buckwheat pancakes and fried pork and hot biscuits -and doughtnuts and Washington pie. There was nothing the matter with -Robert Vane. Everything was right with him. - -The wind swished around the corners of the little house, harsh and heavy -with its burdens of dry snow. It slashed the roof and lashed the blinded -windows and shouldered the door. It whistled in the chimney and under -the eaves; and from the surrounding forest came the muffled roar of it -like surf along a reef. - -“Hark!” exclaimed Mrs. Dent. “What was that?” - -“The wind,” said Larry. “Did you expect a brass band?” - -The old dog got onto his feet and cocked an ear. - -“Rover heard it. There it is again! Hark! Like someone yellin’.” - -Larry went to the door and pulled it open. Wind and snow leapt in, the -fire roared in the stove, the flame of the lamp jumped high and vanished -and the old dog cowered back under the table and howled. - -“Shut that door!” screamed Mrs. Dent; and Larry shut it. - -Vane struck a match, and lit the lamp. - -“I didn’t hear anything but the wind,” he said. - -“I guess that’s what it was, all right—but it sure did sound like -someone hollerin’, once or twice,” said the woman. - - - - - CHAPTER XI - - - THE PURCHASE - -The luck of the Danglers went wrong all at once. They got what was due -them and overdue them suddenly and swiftly, no mistake about that! Old -Luke and two others were caught in the coils of the law with enough -loops over them to hold them for years, and the still and the stock were -confiscated. Old Luke had money, but it availed him nothing now. And -Amos was dead—and none the less so because poor Pete Sledge’s queer -life had also suffered a violent and sudden conclusion. And young Steve -Dangler was missing. Steve had been last seen by his father, on the day -of the raid, on the road between Forkville and Goose Creek. Days passed -without further sign of him or any word of him. Even Miss Hassock was -sorry for the Danglers. Though she believed that nothing was too bad for -them, she felt that this deluge of disaster might better have been -thinned over a period of several years, thus offering opportunities for -remorse and perhaps for reform. - -Robert Vane, the engine which had been selected by fate for the undoing -of the Danglers, did not permit pity for the men who had plotted his -death to halt his activities. The obstacles to his inspection of old -Luke’s stables having been removed with the removal of the old breeder, -Vane went ahead in that matter, advised by Jard. They did business with -an elderly spinster, a daughter of Luke’s, who had the old ruffian’s -power-of-attorney, but none of his pride in, and jealousy of, the horses -of the ancient strain. They found several bays with white legs among the -fast ones, and selected a colt going on three, after a searching -examination. The price was four hundred dollars, which Vane paid with -banknotes. - -“An’ what about the pedigree?” asked Jard. “The old man kept a -stud-book, for I’ve seen it.” - -“He took it away with him,” said Miss Dangler. “If you want that colt’s -pedigree you gotter go to jail for it.” She scowled at Vane defiantly, -then turned suddenly and burst into tears. - -Vane was sorry for her, but he couldn’t think of a word of comfort to -say to her. He was embarrassed. He looked to Jard for help. - -“Now don’t take on about that,” said Jard in a soothing voice. “There’s -worse places than jail, Miss Nancy, an’ there’s been better men in jail -than Luke Dangler.” - -For some reason which was not clear to Vane, these words quieted the -woman. She dried her eyes with the back of a large hand. - -“I reckon ye’re right, Jard Hassock,” she said. - -“If the colt turns out half as well as I expect him to, he’s worth more -than four hundred,” said Vane; and, before Jard could stop his hand, he -slipped another bill to her. - -“Maybe he’ll show you the book,” she said, yet more softened. “But -what’s the use of a pedigree, young man? Why d’you want somethin’ with a -colt you don’t ask for with a human? They tell me you be lookin’ to -marry Joe Hinch—my own niece, an’ own blood granddaughter to old Luke -Dangler an’ old Dave Hinch! Now what kinder pedigree d’ye call that, -mister?” - -“She hasn’t asked for mine, and I don’t give a damn if all her -grandparents are devils!” exclaimed Vane. “I know her—and she’s what I -want!” - -Miss Dangler smiled for the first time. “I reckon ye’re right,” she -said. - -On the day of the great adventure in the snowstorm, Joe had promised to -marry Robert Vane in two weeks’ time. - -Joe lived at the McPhees now, with her Grandfather Hinch; and Vane, -still the occupant of the state chamber of Moosehead House, spent -charmed hours of every day and evening with her. She had dropped the -last shred of doubt of his sincerity during the last few hours of their -battle toward Larry Dent’s sheltering roof. They argued sometimes as to -which had saved the other’s life that day, only to agree that neither -could have won through alive without the heroic devotion of the other. -The days and nights slipped along like enchantment toward the great day. -Vane lived in a world as new as dawn to him, a world which he had -sometimes in the past vaguely suspected and vaguely longed for, a world -unlike anything he had ever known. - -One midnight, having returned from the McPhees’ at ten o’clock and -yarned with Jard for an hour and then smoked alone by his fire for -another hour, Vane was startled from his reveries by the slow and silent -opening of his door. He got lightly to his feet. A man entered, and -cautiously shut the door. It was an old man, bent a trifle at knees and -neck, broad-shouldered and white-bearded, wearing an old felt hat pulled -low over the forehead. He was a stranger to Vane. He laid a finger on -his lip and advanced. - -“What do you want?” asked Vane. “And who are you?” - -“Not so loud!” cautioned the other in a horse whisper. “I ain’t come for -any harm—but there’s no call to wake up Liza Hassock. ’Scuse me if I -set down. I’m Luke Dangler.” - -Vane pointed him to a chair, and resumed his own seat. - -“I thought you were in jail in Fredericton,” he said, in guarded tones. - -“So I was, but I got out an’ run for it. I been home to Goose Crick. Now -look-a-here, mister, was one of my horses what you come onto this -country after? Tell me that now, straight!” - -“I came to try to buy a horse of that strain you breed.” - -“What d’you know about that strain?” - -“Plenty. I know all about Willoughby Girl, that English mare that was -stolen from an Englishman ninety-nine years ago. She was a granddaughter -of Eclipse.” - -“Was she now? Where’d you l’arn all that?” - -“I learned all that from my father, when I was a small boy. I’m the -grandson of the man who brought Willoughby Girl to this country, and -lost her by theft. He hunted for her over half the world—almost -everywhere but on Goose Creek.” - -“Sufferin’ cats! An’ you come lookin’ for a bit of the old strain of -blood! Why the hell didn’t you say so first off? If you’d told me who -you was I’d believed you an’ sold you a horse. But you be from the -States, an’ the gent who owned the English mare was an Englishman! My pa -told me so many’s the time.” - -“It was your mistake—all your own fault! As to my grandfather being an -Englishman—why not? We are all Americans now.” - -“Hell! Maybe a Dangler done yer gran’pa a dirty turn a hundred years -ago, but you’ve squared that account with enough left over and to spare -to settle for twenty stolen mares. There’s Amos dead—an’ where’s young -Steve? Here’s me in jail—or leastwise had oughter be—an’ penitentiary -awaitin’ me; an’ the same for Ned an’ Benjamin an’ maybe for two-three -more. An’ there’s the business shot to hell! An’ all because you come -onto this country to buy a horse, an’ didn’t have courage enough to come -an’ tell me the truth!” - -“If it amuses you to say so, go ahead. It was my fault that two of your -dirty cowards ambushed me and knocked me senseless a couple of times, -and left me to die in the woods, I suppose? Don’t be a fool!” - -“Sure it was yer fault! If you hadn’t been drug off, that damn saphead -Jard Hassock wouldn’t have raised the village ag’in us, an’ the deputy -sheriff—damn his eyes!—wouldn’t have spied out the still an’ what not, -an’ Amos would be alive now, an’ so would young Steve, an’ I’d be -settin’ safe in my own house instead of here tryin’ to make a deal.” - -“A deal? What’s the idea?” - -“Nancy says you want my pedigree book. All right—an’ I want some money. -She give me a couple hundreds of what you paid her for the colt—an’ a -mean price that was paid, mister! I need moren’t two hundred for to make -a gitaway, but I can’t touch a doller of all my money, for it’s in the -bank down to Frederickton, an’ that’s where they cal’late I’m in jail -at. I’ll give you the pedigree book for five hundred dollars. You -couldn’t git it for thousands, if it wasn’t that the police is after me -to put me back in jail, an’ I need the money the worst way.” - -“Dangler, you are hard-boiled. And you’re a fool! Why do you imagine for -a moment that I’ll supply you with money to escape with? Anything the -law may hand to you will be less than you deserve. If you were to -receive your deserts you’d be hanged for a murderer. Hasn’t it occurred -to you that I’m much more likely to hand you back to the police than to -buy your stud-book?” - -The old man smiled. “That would be a hell of a way to treat Joe’s -gran’pa!” he said. “Wouldn’t it read rotten in the newspapers? I could -tell them reporter lads quite a lot about pedigrees they don’t know yet, -‘Robert Vane, New York sport, weds the great-granddaughter of the thief -who stole a horse from his gran’pa. Mr. Vane of New York weds Miss Hinch -of Goose Crick. The bride’s gran’pa an’ uncles wasn’t to the weddin’, -bein’ in jail for moonshinin’ an’ bootleggin’ an’ murder.’ Say, wouldn’t -it read great in the newspapers?” - -“Go to it, Dangler! You haven’t got me right.” - -The old man eyed him keenly, then produced a notebook bound in oilcloth -from an inner pocket. He handed it to Vane. “There’s the record back to -the English mare of every foal an’ filly me an’ my pa ever bred of that -old strain of blood.” - -Vane glanced through the book, and saw that this was probably so. - -“It’s yer own,” said Luke Dangler. “But I tell you ag’in you give Nancy -a mean price for the bay colt. Do I go back to jail, or don’t I?” - -“You may go to hell, for all I care,” replied Vane, calmly. - -“Thanky, gran’son-in-law. Well, I’ll be startin’.” - -“One moment.” Vane dug into an inner pocket, fingered crisp papers and -passed four hundred dollars to the old man. - -“I think the colt is worth every cent of it,” he said. “You know your -way out. Good morning.” - -“Say! You’re a real sport! Thank God you didn’t git lost in the woods -that day? Shake on it.” - -Old Luke Dangler extended his hand. Vane overlooked it. - -“Shut the window after you,” said Vane. - -So the old rogue went. There was nothing else for him to do. - - - - - CHAPTER XII - - - NO CHANCES - -A bunch of belated letters arrived next morning for Vane. They had been -hung up at the little town on the big river, where the postmaster had -mislaid the address for forwarding which Vane had left with him. Three -letters were from his mother, three from the lady whose indifference to -and skepticism concerning the backwoods descendants of Willoughby Girl -had stung him into making the journey to Forkville—and who had never -before addressed so much as a scratch of a pen to him—and several from -several firms of solicitors and attorneys. He read them all before he -went to see Joe. He found Joe waiting for him, all ready for the morning -walk. - -“Let’s go out the Glen Road this morning,” she suggested. - -“No, I think we had better get married this morning,” he said gravely. - -“But that’s for Thursday—day after to-morrow. Had you forgotten? What’s -the matter, Rob?” - -“I do believe I’m afraid. I got some letters to-day—and rather -startling news. My uncle and cousin are dead—killed in a railway -accident. It has put my wind up, I must admit. And when I think of what -you have gone through even since I came to this place—that fire, and -the night and day in the woods—without a scratch, I’m afraid our luck -may change any minute now. Why not to-day instead of Thursday—and take -no chances?” - -“You afraid, Robert? No, it is only the shock of the bad news. We have -nothing to fear. Were you very fond of your uncle and cousin?” - -“But life’s a chancy thing. Yes, I liked them. They were good -fellows—both old soldiers and all that sort of thing—and gone like -that, like nothing! Why wait until the day after to-morrow, dear? Why -drive my luck? We’ll catch the parson at home, and I have the license in -my pocket.” - -“Are you serious, dear?” - -“Dead serious. I’m afraid to take a chance—for the first time in my -life. I never realized before what a risky thing this is—this being -happy. My cousin was to be married, you know. They were on their way to -his wedding.” - -The girl’s eyes filled with tears. - -“Oh, I’m sorry!” she cried. And then, “All right, I’m ready,” she -whispered. - -They returned to the McPhees’ house three hours later, man and wife. -They found the McPhees full of excitement. - -“The deputy sheriff jist drove through here with old Luke Dangler,” said -Tom McPhee to Vane. “The old lad bust out of jail; an’ the deputy caught -him up on the Glen Road, layin’ for someone with a gun. He’s cracked. I -reckon what done it was the sight of Amos stoppin’ Pete Sledge’s axe -with his face that day. They won’t put him back into jail anyhow, the -deputy says. It’s the lunatic asylum for him.” - -“Who was he gunning for on the Glen Road?” asked Vane. - -“That’s what the deputy couldn’t make out. The old lad was cussin’ about -some feller who’d busted up the whole works jist because he didn’t have -courage enough to tell who he was an’ what he wanted.” - -“He has no right to feel that way about it,” returned Vane gravely. “It -was coming to him.” - -[Illustration] - THE END - - - - - TRANSCRIBER NOTES - - -Mis-spelled words and printer errors have been corrected. Where multiple -spellings occur, majority use has been employed. - -Punctuation has been maintained except where obvious printer errors -occur. - - - - - - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GREEN TIMBER THOROUGHBREDS *** - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the -United States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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