by W E Johns
‘McBain, probably,’ replied Biggles, suddenly understanding, for he could see the man deliberately egging the crowd on to take the law into their own hands.
Yells, and not a few curses, reached the prisoners’ ears. Presently a stone was thrown.
Algy looked at Biggles with startled eyes. ‘I don’t like the look of this,’ he said anxiously.
‘Delaney shouldn’t have brought us here knowing that the crowd might behave like this.’
‘He didn’t know. McBain is responsible.’
‘The sooner we are under lock and key, the better I shall be pleased,’ declared Algy. ‘Things look ugly.’
More and more men were hurrying out from the village to meet them and the noise swelled in volume. Above the medley of sound, odd phrases would be heard.
‘String ‘em up, the dirty murderers!’ yelled an old man with a ferocious expression. ‘String ‘em up like we did in the old days.’
‘Murdered Mose for his poke. Hand ‘em over, Delaney,’ roared another.
‘A rope. Fetch a rope, somebody.’
‘Hoist ‘em up.’
‘Old Mose once did me a good turn; now I’ll do him one.’
‘Hang ‘em, hang ‘em! Hang ‘em!’
These were typical of the threats hurled at the three airmen by the crowd as it surged round them and their escort.
‘That’s it, hang ‘em!’ roared McBain.
Delaney halted and held up his hand for silence, but the gesture produced little or no effect. ‘Get back to your work, all of you!’ he bellowed. ‘If this is a hanging job the right people will look after it.’
Those who heard the words only redoubled their demands for the prisoners to be handed over to them.
Delaney was past the stage of being worried. His face was pale and his manner distraught; it became increasingly clear that the situation was beyond his authority or ability to control. ‘I can’t do nothing with ‘em,’ he told Biggles hoarsely.
‘You’ve got a rifle, man; why don’t you use it? The law’s on your side,’ Biggles pointed out harshly. Inwardly he was disgusted at the revolting exhibition of hysteria which the cunning McBain had been able to foster.
‘They’d tear me to bits if I so much as fired a shot into the air,’ yelled Delaney above the uproar.
‘I suppose it doesn’t matter what they do to us?’ sneered Biggles.
A stone was thrown. As it happened it was Delaney that it struck. It caught him on the temple, making an ugly wound. At the sight of the blood the noise died down for a moment, and the constable seized the opportunity provided by the lull to voice another protest. ‘What’s gone wrong with you?’ he shouted furiously. ‘What’s the idea? Would you hang a man without a fair trial?’
‘Yes!’ bellowed a red-headed miner. ‘Give ‘em a trial and the lawyers will help ‘em to dodge the noose. We’ve seen it happen before. Old Mose made his home in Fort Beaver; then it’s up to us in Fort Beaver to see justice done.’
‘Hear, hear! Hurrah!’ shouted the crowd. ‘They killed Mose.’
‘Who said they killed Mose?’ roared Delaney. The stone seemed to have stung him into action.
‘Brindle McBain says so,’ screeched a woman.
‘He seems mighty anxious to get ‘em hanged,’ answered Delaney. ‘It strikes me that he’s a sight too anxious. Maybe he’s got a reason.’
All eyes turned to McBain who, for a moment, looked uncomfortable. ‘If they didn’t do it, why did you arrest ‘em?’ he demanded shrewdly.
This was a poser the unfortunate constable found it difficult to answer, a matter which the crowd was not slow in observing.
‘Come on, boys. String ‘em up!’ yelled McBain. ‘They’ll get off else.’
‘You’ve got one chance; it’s a poor one, but I’ll try to bring it off,’ Delaney told the airmen through set teeth. ‘We’ve got to humour them. Anything so long as we can cause a delay. Maybe later on they’ll come to their senses.’ He faced the crowd, hands aloft. ‘All right,’ he shouted. ‘If they killed Mose then they’ll hang, but I ain’t standing for murder. Let’s take ‘em down to the Three Star and hear what they have to say.’
McBain objected, declaring that this suggestion was only a trick to get the airmen away. A discussion followed and in the end McBain was over-ruled. Possibly the blood on the constable’s face had sobered the crowd somewhat. If Delaney had been struck, it was not likely that the whole affair would be allowed to pass without some one being called to account when the chief constable of the area arrived—as he certainly would, sooner or later. Possibly Delaney’s aggressive attitude had something to do with it. Be that as it may, the crowd, still grimly demanding the prisoners’ lives, quietened down somewhat, and the procession moved off in some sort of order towards the Three Star Saloon.
Another delay occurred at the entrance, where the proprietor, fearful, no doubt, of damage to his property, endeavoured to keep the crowd out. But once a number of people get out of hand they seem to lend each other a sort of false courage to do what in normal circumstances they would not dare do. The door of the saloon was forced open and the crowd surged inside like a wave rushing through a breach in a sea wall. The proprietor took up his position behind the bar, revolver in hand, to prevent looting. He threatened to shoot the first man who attempted to touch a bottle without first paying for it, and from his manner he meant it. Delaney got up on the bar itself, made the prisoners line up under him, facing outwards, and from this commanding position, supported by his carbine, he called the crowd to order.
Satisfied, perhaps, that it was now getting its own way, the uproar subsided, and presently a comparative silence fell. McBain and Ferroni, smugly complacent, pushed their way to the front near the prisoners. McBain bit the end off a cigar, spat the end away, and lighted it.
‘Make it short and sweet,’ he demanded.
‘One more word from you, McBain, and I’ll put you under arrest, too,’ snapped the constable.
‘Yeah?’ drawled McBain. ‘For what?’
‘For inciting a crowd to riot.’
McBain laughed as if this was a huge joke, and such was the power of his personality that the crowd laughed with him. He blew a cloud of smoke in the direction of the prisoners. ‘How are you going to try ‘em—all together or one at a time?’ he questioned. ‘Not that it makes much difference,’ he added casually.
‘You can leave that to me,’ replied Delaney crisply. ‘I’ll say my piece first—but I want you all to know that this isn’t a legal—’
‘Cut out the legal stuff,’ shouted a young farmer. ‘We want the man—or the men—who killed poor old Mose, and we’re going to have him. And when we’re satisfied that we’ve got him we’re going to hang him. Am I right, folks?’
A roar of approval greeted these words.
Delaney held up his right hand. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘I’ll start. First of all, most of you know by now that a packet of gold has been stolen in transit between Moose Creek and Edmonton. Brindle McBain and his pilot flew the gold down, and I saw him hand the boxes over with my own eyes. What was inside those boxes I’m not prepared to swear because my eyes can’t see through half-inch timber. But I’ll swear this: the seals what was put on each box at Moose Creek hadn’t been broken.’
‘What’s all this got to do with Mose?’ drawled McBain in a bored voice.
‘Yes, let’s stick to the business,’ muttered several others.
‘I’m coming to that,’ announced Delaney. ‘I was asked to locate the metal, so I started by inquiring at the aerodrome. First I searched McBain’s outfit, where I found nothing. I then went on to Arctic Airways outfit where I found more than I bargained for. I found, hid under the floor, six bags of gold-dust, done up as a single poke, them bags being the same as we all know Mose made for to carry his dust in. His initials was burnt on to the hide to prove that they was his. Mose must have struck it rich. I didn’t know he had such a poke; he didn’t say nothing about it when he was her
e a week or so ago; but it seems as if somebody else must have known. We all know Mose was murdered, and how he was murdered—now we know why he was murdered.’
‘That’s where you’re wrong, Delaney,’ put in Biggles quietly.
‘I can’t think of no better reason for killing a man than a heavy poke,’ snapped the constable.
From the chorus of jeers that broke out it was evident that the crowd thought the same.
‘On the strength of that poke I arrested every one in the outfit where it was found,’ continued Delaney. ‘And unless the prisoners can explain how they came to be hiding a murdered man’s poke, particularly as at least one of ‘em was with Mose on the night he was killed, then I reckon any court would find ‘em guilty. This ain’t a properly constituted court and nobody here has any right to take the law into his own hands. These prisoners will have a proper trial, but, as I say, unless they can prove that Mose gave ‘em his poke—which I doubt—then they’ll hang.’
On a point of law Delaney was, of course, incorrect, but none of the airmen thought it worth while to argue. They knew as well as any one how damning the evidence was, and Biggles, for one, could not find it in his heart to blame the crowd for its line of thought.
‘It is one of the privileges of British justice,’ he said loudly, ‘that no man is condemned without being allowed to make a statement in his own defence.’
‘I reckons we’ve heard enough,’ sneered McBain.
‘You shut your face, McBain,’ cried Delaney angrily. Then to Biggles: ‘Speak up,’ he cried. ‘You’d better get up here where every one can see you.’
Biggles climbed up on the bar and faced the sea of scowling faces in front of him. Perhaps it was his quiet manner, or the steadiness of his eyes, that had some effect on the crowd. A hush fell.
‘First of all,’ he began, ‘let me say that I don’t blame any one of you for feeling as you do, or for thinking as you do. Were I amongst you, and another man was standing where I am now, faced with such evidence as has been given by Constable Delaney, I should say “that man killed old Mose for his poke”. But I should be wrong.’
The expressions on the faces of some of his hearers changed, suggesting that the words had had the desired effect. Biggles noticed it. Delaney noticed it, and breathed a sigh of relief, realizing that if once the hot indignation of the crowd could be calmed they would be more likely to listen to reason and allow the law to take its course in the usual way.
But another man had noticed it too—McBain. And he perceived, apparently, that if Biggles were allowed to continue, his plans for the swift and easy disposal of his enemies might even yet fail.
‘Don’t take any notice of him,’ he sneered. ‘He reckons we’re a lot of suckers. Let him talk and he’ll put one over. Come on, boys, we’re wasting time. We know he killed Mose, and he ain’t goin’ to get away with it.’
‘Cut the gas!’ snapped Delaney, but his words were drowned in a fresh uproar started by the more headstrong elements of the crowd. The cry went up, ‘Lynch ‘em!’ and it was echoed on all sides. The mob surged forward towards the prisoners.
‘Stand back!’ The bar-keeper was on the counter, the muzzle of his heavy revolver threatening the upturned faces below. ‘You’d better get ‘em down to the jail, Delaney,’ he said in a swift aside. ‘I’ll hold this rabble. Go the back way.’
Biggles and the others did not know it, but the proprietor of the Three Star was a retired sergeant of the ‘mounties’, which no doubt accounted for his partisanship on the side of the law. The habits of twenty years are not easily cast aside.
Delaney looked at the now clamouring crowd, and what he saw convinced him of the futility of further argument. He turned to Biggles. ‘If we don’t make the jail they’ll hang you, and I shan’t be able to stop them. Follow me. If you try to get away I’ll plug you.’
Algy and Wilks, now pressed by the crowd, climbed up on to the counter. Instantly there was a yell of ‘Stop ‘em’, and a shot was fired from somewhere in the rear of the mob. The bar-keeper’s left arm fell limply to his side. Without a word he blazed back at the man who had shot him. The red-headed miner collapsed in a heap on the floor. Pandemonium followed. A revolver barked again and the bar-keeper pitched head first into the crowd.
Delaney, white with fury, shot the man who had fired. He waited for no more. ‘Come on,’ he yelled, and dashed to the rear of the bar, followed closely by the prisoners.
There was a brief respite as they dashed pell-mell out of the back door of the saloon, for most of the crowd was inside, and those who had run out of the front door had not yet had time to get round to the rear.
‘The jail is our only chance,’ snapped Delaney. ‘If we can get inside we may be able to hold it. This way.’
They dashed down the rear of some frame buildings and cut back into the main street of the village, just as the crowd surged into sight round the end of the saloon. Several shots were fired, but they went wide, flecking up the earth or ripping splinters from the wooden buildings.
The constable and his prisoners did not stop. With Delaney leading, they raced towards a heavily built log cabin which stood in the middle of the track facing the direction from which they had come. A single iron-barred window plainly announced its purpose.
Delaney was feeling in his pocket for the key even before they reached it. He was fumbling with the lock as the crowd, led by McBain, poured into sight. McBain fired, and a bullet thudded into the logs. Biggles fired four quick shots over the heads of the crowd, and while it did not stop their progress, it delayed the leaders long enough for the constable to get the door open.
They all rushed inside, Delaney slamming the massive door behind them and locking it.
‘Where did you get that gun?’ he asked angrily.
‘It was the bar-keeper’s,’ answered Biggles simply.
The constable did not pursue the subject. He closed two shutters on the window and bolted them, but a dim light still came through the numerous cracks in them.
‘Well, we’ve made it,’ he said moodily, ‘But I don’t know what good it’s going to do us. We can’t hold it for ever. McBain’s got that crowd into a good enough state for anything.’
‘Well, at least it gives us breathing space,’ replied Biggles, looking round the single large room which comprised the jail. ‘I reckon we’ve got one chance left.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Ginger.’
‘You mean that kid who got away in the ‘plane?’
‘That’s right.’
Algy looked up. ‘Gosh! I’d forgotten all about him,’ he confessed. ‘What can he do, do you suppose?’
Biggles shrugged his shoulders. ‘Goodness knows. But he’ll do something, you can bet your life on that. By the way, I wonder what became of Smyth? He must have seen Delaney marching us towards the village, and guessing what had happened, found some place to hide. He’ll take care of himself. I’m more worried about Ginger. I should like to know what he’s doing at this moment.’
Trapped!
‘WELL, WHATEVER IT is he’s doing, he’ll have to be quick about it,’ remarked Delaney coldly.
‘You think the crowd will attack us here—in a Government building?’ asked Biggles.
A bullet thudded against the side of the cabin; a splinter of wood jerked out into the room.
‘There’s your answer,’ said Delaney.
From a safe place Biggles looked through the barred window at the sky, now pink-flushed with the approach of sunset. He could not imagine what Ginger was doing or where he had gone, but as Delaney had said, if he was coming back he would have to be quick, if for no other reason than that it would soon be dark.
Biggles looked back at the constable. ‘Curious situation, isn’t it?’ he observed. ‘Are we allowed to defend ourselves? I mean, if we kill any one in defending our lives, are we liable to be charged with murder?’
‘Not while I’m here, I reckon,’ replied Delaney dubiously, as though h
e was not quite sure himself. ‘It’s McBain who is causing the trouble; but for him I think the others would clear off.’
‘Why don’t you go out and arrest him?’ suggested Biggles.
The constable started. ‘That’s an idea,’ he confessed.
‘They’re not likely to shoot you,’ urged Biggles.
‘Maybe not, but they’re likely to shoot you if I open this door,’ returned Delaney grimly.
He ducked as a stone whirled through the window. It struck the opposite wall with a crash, and fell to the floor. They all looked at the missile and observed at once that there was something unusual about it. Biggles picked it up. ‘Hello,’ he said, ‘this looks like a message.’
A piece of paper had, in fact, been tied to the stone with a piece of string.
Delaney, asserting his authority, took it out of Biggles’s hands, unfolded it, and, in the fast waning light, read something that had been written on it.
‘What is it?’ asked Algy, unable to restrain his curiosity.
‘It’s from that fellow of yours—Smyth,’ said Delaney. ‘He says he’s found and saddled my mare and is going to Blackfoot Point for help.... There’s an officer and four troopers there,’ he added, by way of explanation. ‘Somebody in the crowd must have given him the tip.’
‘How far away is this place?’ asked Biggles.
‘Twenty miles—a bit over.’
‘Well, that’s a hope, anyway; but twenty miles—it means that if Smyth gets there we couldn’t expect help much before dawn.’
‘And I reckon that’ll be about six hours too late,’ returned Delaney. ‘What are they up to outside?’
There was little need to ask. While the foregoing conversation had been taking place the crowd had surged round the jail, and the demands for the prisoners had reached an alarming pitch of frenzy. ‘We want the men who killed Mose,’ was the gist of the cries.
‘Bring ’em out, Delaney, or we’ll tear the jail down,’ yelled a strident voice.
‘This is Government property and I’ll plug the first man who lays hands on it,’ roared the constable. ‘Go home, the lot of you.’
