Lorimer of the Northwest. Harold Bindloss
never taken the 83 life of a man, though occasionally forced into handling one roughly. Before any decision could be arrived at a tramp of feet in the hall showed that somebody approached under a burden.
“Keep the muzzle on him,” said one. “I guess Jim has found the coffer, and we’ll make sure of that. I’ll help him to cinch it on the horse if we can’t open it. Colonel, we’ll have to fine you the further thousand dollars.”
I realized it was high time for me to vacate that position unless I wished the couple to discover me, and so I slipped back into the shadow, just in time, as they strode out carrying something. I watched them vanish into the blackness, heard the scout answer their hail, and then I crawled back swiftly—toward the door this time. A glance through the window in passing showed me that the remaining outlaw stood with his back toward the entrance, and his eyes fixed on the Colonel. The door was half closed when I reached it, and for a moment I stood there shortening my grip on the rifle and gathering my breath; then with a bound I drove it inward, and whirled aloft the butt of the Winchester.
The outlaw twisted round on his heels; but he moved an instant too late, for even as his fingers tightened on the trigger the steel heel-plate descended in the center of his face, and I felt something crunch in under it. He staggered sideways, there was a crash as the rifle exploded harmlessly, and before he could recover I had him by the neck and hurled him half-choked through the door. I had the sense to slam it and slip the bolt home; then, while I stood panting, the Colonel prepared to improve our position.
“Close those shutters and screw down the wing-nut hard,” he said, hanging the lamp close beside the door. “Now, stand here in the shadow. I am much obliged to you, but you should have made certain of that fellow.” 84
It was only natural that he should feel resentment; but there was a cold vindictiveness in his tone which made me realize that it was as well for the outlaw that I had not left him in the room. Then he spoke again:
“We have two good weapons; that rascal’s cylinder is charged—I saw him fill it out of my own bandolier, and there is an armory in the other room. They took me by surprise—in Western parlance, got the drop on me. Of course they’ll come back, but all the doors and windows are fast, and we could hear them breaking in, while in this kind of work the risk is with the aggressor.”
A pounding on the door cut him short, and a hoarse, partly muffled voice reached us:
“We’re about sick of fooling, and mean solid business now,” it said. “Open, and be quick about it, before we smash that door down and try moral suasion by roasting both of you.”
“You should have stayed when you were in,” was the ironical answer. “No doubt you have observed the light under the door. Well, the first man across the threshold will get a bullet through him before he even sees us. Haven’t you realized yet that this undertaking is too big for you?”
“Curse him; he’s busted my best teeth in. Hunt round and find something for a battering ram,” cried another voice, but though the assailants had possibly not caught all the answer, they evidently understood the strength of our position, for we heard them moving away.
“Gone to open the chest in the stables; they won’t find much in it,” said Colonel Carrington. “They will try a fresh move next time. Mr. Lorimer, of Fairmead, are you not? I wish to express my obligations again.”
He took it very coolly, as it appeared he took everything, and smiled curiously as, glancing at his watch, he said 85 half-aloud: “Well, there are worse things than a clean swift ending, and there was a time when I should not have stepped aside to let death pass. But I apologize, Mr. Lorimer, for inflicting such talk on you. Hope we shall be friends if we come out of this safely. The check?—yes, we’ll put it away. It might have saved trouble to sign it, but you see it was her mother’s money, and I only hold it in trust for my daughter. Neither are we as rich as some suppose us to be.”
His grim face relaxed, and his voice sounded different when he spoke of Grace, while a few moments passed before he added:
“It cannot be far from dawn, and there’s not a soul in Carrington except you and myself. Grace took all my people with her to help at Lone Hollow. So, unless you are inclined to stalk them, which I should hardly suggest, as they might be too clever for you, we must await our friends’ arrival and make the best of it.”
I had no inclination whatever to try the stalking. To take a kneeling shot at an unsuspecting man seemed in any circumstances almost a crime; so we sat each with a rifle laid across his knees, and for the first time in two years I tasted excellent tobacco. But the vigil grew trying. The house seemed filled with whispers and mysterious noises. My throat grew dry, and the Colonel laughed when once I moved sharply as a rat scurried behind the wainscot. Neither of us felt inclined to talk, and our eyes were fixed steadfastly upon the door, until at last the lamp seemed to rise and fall with each respiration. Then the Colonel approached the window as though listening, after glancing once more at his watch.
“It must be daybreak, and I hear something,” he said. “There is probably one of them watching, but we must chance it,” and he moved softly toward the door. When 86 we stood outside the cold of the morning went through me like a knife. Still a rapid beat of horse hoofs rose out of the big coulée, and it was evident that the outlaws had heard them, for we saw two men busy with the horses at the stable door, while two more disappeared behind the bank of sods that walled off the vegetable garden. What their purpose was, unless they meant to check any accession to our strength while their comrades escaped with the coffer, was not apparent. It was blowing strongly now, and the air was thick with falling snow, but I made out two riders who resembled Harry and Ormond coming toward us at a gallop, with another horseman some distance behind. Then a hoarse shout reached us—“Stop right there, and wheel your horses before we plug you!”
I could not see into the hollow beneath the wall because it was some distance off and the snow whirled about it, but I could imagine the Winchester barrel resting on the sods while a steady eye stared through the sights, and knew that neither Ormond nor Harry carried weapons. So I started at a flounder toward them, roaring as I went:
“Go back—for your life, go back!”
They evidently did not hear me, though we were afterwards to hear the reason for an apparent act of madness. Harry was always reckless, and Ormond coolly brave, while as I ran I saw the two horses flying at the wall. A streak of red flame blazed out low down in the snow, a mounted man passed me leading two horses, and I neither knew nor cared whether he noticed me, for I felt suddenly dizzy, wondering whether the bullet had gone home. Neither did I hear any report at all, for my whole attention was concentrated on the black shapes of the riders breast high beyond the wall. Then one beast rose into the air, and I saw Ormond swing a riding crop round backward as though for the sword cut from behind the shoulder. A soft thud 87 followed, Harry’s horse cleared the sods like a bird, and I blazed off my rifle at a venture toward the hollow as they thundered neck and neck past me. It was clear that empty-handed they had ridden either over or through the foe.
After that events followed too rapidly to leave a clear impression. A pair of half-seen figures which appeared at the other end of the hollow scrambled for the empty saddles, and one seemed to help his companion. Then they vanished into the whirling haze, and Colonel Carrington’s Winchester rapped as he emptied the magazine at the flying foe, while by the time the new arrivals had mastered their excited beasts there was only a narrow circle of prairie shut in by blinding snow.
“Very glad to find you safe, sir,” said Ormond. “We met the Blackfoot who peddles moccasins, and he told us he had seen four men he thought were Stevens’ gang heading for Carrington, so we pushed on as fast as we could. Perhaps if we three went on with rifles we might overtake them.”
Harry looked eager, and I was willing, but Colonel Carrington was wisest:
“You have done gallantly,” he said, “but it would only be throwing lives away. The snow is coming in earnest, and it strikes me they have gone to their account unless they find shelter in a coulée.”
Then they dismounted,