CHAPTER XXXIX
At something after seven o'clock that night Willy Cameron and PinkDenslow reached that point on the Mayville Road which had beendesignated by the storekeeper, Cusick. They left the car there, hiddenin a grove, and struck off across country to the west. Willy Cameronhad been thoughtful for some time, and as they climbed a low hill, goingwith extreme caution, he said:
"I'm still skeptical about Cusick, Pink. Do you think he's straight?"
"One of the best men we've got," Pink replied, confidently. "He's put uson to several things."
"He's foreign born, isn't he?"
"That's his value. They don't suspect him for a minute."
"But--what does he get out of it?"
"Good citizen," said Pink, with promptness. "You've got to remember,Cameron, that a lot of these fellows are better Americans than we are.They're like religious converts, stronger than the ones born in thefold. They're Americans because they want to be. Anyhow, you ought to bestrong for him, Cameron. He said to tell you, but no one else."
"I'll tell you how strong I am for him later," Willy Cameron said,grimly. "Just at this minute I'm waiting to be shown."
They advanced with infinite caution, for the evening was still light.Going slowly, it was well after eight and fairly dark before they camewithin sight of the farm buildings in the valley below. Long unpainted,they were barely discernable in the shadows of the hills. The landaround had been carefully cleared, and both men were dismayed at thedifficulty of access without being seen.
"Doesn't look very good, does it?" Pink observed. "I will say this, forseclusion and keeping away unwanted visitors, it has it all over anydug-out I ever saw in France."
"Listen!" Willy Cameron said, tensely.
They stood on the alert, but only the evening sounds of country andforest rewarded them.
"What was it?" Pink inquired, after perhaps two minutes of waiting.
"Plain scare on my part, probably. I don't so much mind this littleexcursion, Pink, as I hate the idea that a certain gentleman namedCusick may have a chance to come to our funerals and laugh himself todeath."
When real darkness had fallen, they had reached the lower fringe of thewoods. Pink had the fault of the city dweller, however, of being unableto step lightly in the dark, and their progress had been less silentthan it should have been. In spite of his handicap, Willy Cameron madehis way with the instinctive knowledge of the country bred boy, treadinglike a cat.
"Pretty poor," Pink said in a discouraged whisper, after a twig hadburst under his foot with a report like the shot of a pistol. "Youtravel like a spook, while I--"
"Listen, Pink. I'm going in alone to look around. Stop muttering andlisten to me. It's poor strategy not to have a reserve somewhere, isn'tit?"
"I'm a poor prune at the best," Pink said stubbornly, "but I am notgoing to let you go into that place alone. You can rave all you want."
"Very well. Then we'll both stay here. You are about as quiet as a horsegoing through a corn patch."
After some moments Pink spoke again.
"If you insist on stealing the whole show," he said, sulkily, "what am Ito do? Run to town for help, if you need it?"
"I'm not going to round up the outfit, if there is one. I haven't lostmy mind. I'll see what is going on, or about to go on. Then I'll comeback."
"Here?"
Cameron considered.
"Better meet at the machine," he decided, after a glance at the sky. "Inhalf an hour you won't be able to see your hand in front of you. Waithere for a half-hour or so, and then start back, and for heaven's sakedon't shoot at anything you see moving. As a matter of fact, I mightas well have your revolver. I won't need it, but it may avoid anyaccidental shooting by a youth I both love and admire!"
"If I hear any shooting, I'll come in," Pink said, still sulky.
"Come in and welcome," said Willy Cameron, and Pink knew he was smiling.
He took the revolver and slipped away into the darkness, leaving Pinkboth melancholy and disturbed. Unaccustomed to night in the woods, hefound his nerves twitching at every sound. In the war there had been adefinite enemy, definitely placed. Even when he had gone into that vilestrip between the trenches, there had been a general direction for theinimical. Here--
He moved carefully, and stood with his back against a tree.
Not a sound came from the farm buildings. Willy Cameron's progress, too,was noiseless. With no way to tell the lapse of time, and gauging it byhis war experience, when an hour had apparently passed by, he knew thatCameron had been gone about ten minutes.
Time dragged on. A cow, unmilked, lowed plaintively once or twice. ASeptember night breeze set the dying leaves on the trees to rustling,and stirred the dried ones about his feet. Pink's mind, graduallyreassured, turned to other things. He thought of Lily Cardew, for one.Like Willy Cameron, he knew he would always love her, but unlike Willy,the first pain of her loss was gone. He was glad that time was over.He was glad that she was at home again, safe from those--Some one wasmoving near him, passing within twenty feet. Whoever it was was steppingcautiously but blunderingly. It was not Cameron, then. He was a footfallonly, not even an outline. Before Pink could decide on a line of action,the sound was lost.
Every sense acute, he waited. He had decided that if the incident wererepeated, he would make an effort to get the fellow from behind, butthere was no return. The wind had died again, and there was no longereven the rustling of the leaves to break the utter stillness.
Suddenly he saw a red flash near the barn, and an instant later heardthe report of a pistol. Came immediately after that a brief fusillade ofshots, a pause, then two or three scattering ones.
With the first shot Pink started running. He was vaguely conscious ofother steps near him, running also, but he could see nothing. His wholemind was set on finding Willy Cameron. Alone he had not a chance, buttwo of them together could put up a fight. He pelted along, stumbling,recovering, stumbling again.
Another shot was fired. They hadn't got him yet, or they wouldn't beshooting. He raised his voice in a great call.
"Cameron! Here! Cameron!"
He ran into a low fence then, and it threw him. He had hardly got tohis knees before the other running figure had hurled itself on him, andstruck him with the butt of a revolver. He dropped flat and lay still.
* * * * *
For weeks Woslosky had known of the growing strength of the VigilanceCommittee, and that it was arming steadily.
It threatened absolutely the success of his plans. Even the election ofAkers and the changes he would make in the city police; even the ruseof other strikes and machine-made riotings to call away the statetroops,--none of these, or all of them, would be effectual against anorganized body of citizens, duly called to the emergency.
And such an organization was already effected. Within a week, when thefirst card reached his hands, it had grown to respectable proportions.Woslosky went to Doyle, and they made their counter-moves quickly. Nomore violence. A seemingly real but deceptive orderliness. They weredealing with inflammatory material, however, and now and then it gotout of hand. Unlike Doyle the calculating, who made each move slowly andwatched its results with infinite zest, the Pole chafed under delay.
"We can't hold them much longer," he complained, bitterly. "This thingof holding them off until after the election--and until Akers takesoffice--it's got too many ifs in it."
"It was haste lost Seattle," said Doyle, as unmoved as Woslosky wasexcited.
Woslosky did not like Louis Akers. What was more important, hedistrusted him. When he heard of his engagement to Lily Cardew he warnedDoyle about him.
"He's in this thing for what he can get out of it," he said. "He'll goas far as he can, with safety, to be accepted by the Cardews."
"Exactly," was Doyle's dry comment, "with safety, you said. Well, heknows you and he knows me, and he'll he straight because he's afraid notto be."
"When there's a woman in it!
" said the Pole, skeptically.
But Doyle only smiled. He had known many women and loved none of them,and he was temperamentally unable to understand the type of man who sawthe world through a woman's eyes and in them.
So Woslosky was compelled to watch the growth of Willy Cameron'sorganization, and to hold in check the violent passions he had himselfroused, and to wait, gnawing his nails with inaction and his heart withrage. But these certain things he discovered:
That the organization's growth was coincident with a new interest inlocal politics, as though some vital force had wakened the plain peopleto a sense of responsibility.
That a drug clerk named Cameron was the founder and moving spirit of theleague, and that he was, using Hendricks' candidacy as a means, rousingthe city to a burning patriotic activity that Mr. Woslosky regarded asextremely pernicious.
And that this same Willy Cameron had apparently a knowledge of certainplans, which was rather worse than pernicious. Mr. Woslosky's name forit was damnable.
For instance, there were the lists of the various city stores and theirestimated contents, missing from Mr. Woslosky's own inconspicuous trunkin a storage house. On that had been based the plan for feeding therevolution, by the simple expedient of exchanging by organized pillagethe contents of the city stores for food stuffs from the farmers inoutlying districts.
Revolution, according to Mr. Woslosky, could only be starved out. He hadno anxiety as to troops which would be sent against them, because he hada cynical belief that a man's country was less to him than various otherthings, including his stomach. He believed that all armies were riddledwith sedition and fundamentally opposed to law.
Copies of other important matters, too, were missing. Lists of officialsfor the revolutionary city government and of deputies to take the placesof the disbanded police, plans for manning, by the radicals, the citylight, water and power plants; a schedule of public eating houses totake the place of the restaurants.
Woslosky began to find this drug clerk with the ridiculous given namegetting on his nerves. He considered him a dangerous enemy to progress,that particular form of progress which Mr. Woslosky advocated, andhe suspected him of a lack of ethics regarding trunks in storage. Mr.Woslosky had the old-world idea that the best government was a despotismtempered by assassination. He thought considerably about Willy Cameron.
But the plan concerning the farm house was, in the end, devised by LouisAkers. Woslosky was skeptical. It was true that Cameron might stick hishead into the lion's jaws, but precautions had been known to be taken atsuch times to prevent their closing. However, the Pole was desperate.
He took six picked men with him that afternoon to the farm, and made astrategic survey of the situation. The house was closed and locked,but he was not concerned with the house. Cusick had told Denslow themeetings were held late at night in the barn, and to the barn Wosloskyrepaired, sawed-off shotgun under his coat and cigarette in mouth, andinspected it with his evil smile. Two men, young and reckless, mighteasily plan to conceal themselves under the hay in the loft, and--
Woslosky put down his gun and went down into the cow barn below,whistling softly to himself. He began to enjoy the prospect. He gatheredsome eggs from the feed boxes, carrying them in his hat, and breakingthe lock of the kitchen door he and his outfit looted the closetthere and had an early supper, being careful to extinguish the fireafterwards.
Not until dusk was falling did he post his men, three outside amongthe outbuildings, one as a sentry near the woods, and two in the barnitself. He himself took up his station inside the barn door, sitting onthe floor with his gun across his knees. Looking out from there, he sawthe sharp flash of a hastily extinguished match, and snarled with anger.He had forbidden smoking.
"I've got to go out," he said cautiously. "Don't you fools shoot me whenI come back."
He slipped out into what was by that time complete blackness.
Some five minutes later he came back, still noiselessly, and treadinglike a cat. He could only locate the barn door by feeling for it, andabove the light scraping of his fingers he could hear, inside, cautiousfootsteps over the board floor. He scowled again. Damn this countryquiet, anyhow! But he had found the doorway, and was feeling his waythrough when he found himself caught and violently thrown. The falland the surprise stunned him. He lay still for an infuriated helplesssecond, with a knee on his chest and both arms tightly held, to hear oneof his own men above him saying:
"Got him, all right. Woslosky, you've got the rope, haven't you?"
"You fool!" snarled Woslosky from the floor, "let me up. You've halfkilled me. Didn't I tell you I was going out?"
He scrambled to his feet, and to an astounded silence.
"But you came in a couple of minutes ago. Somebody came in. You heardhim, Cusick, didn't you?"
Woslosky whirled and closed and fastened the barn doors, and almost withthe same movement drew a searchlight and flashed it over the place. Itwas apparently empty.
The Pole burst into blasphemous anger, punctuated with sharp questions.Both men had heard the cautious entrance they had taken for his own,both men had remained silent and unsuspicious, and both were positivewhoever had come in had not gone out again.
He stationed one man at the door, and commenced a merciless search. Thesummer's hay filled one end, but it was closely packed below and offeredno refuge. Armed with the shotgun, and with the flash in his pocket,Woslosky climbed the ladder to the loft, going softly. He listened atthe top, and then searched it with the light, holding it far to the leftfor a possible bullet. The loft was empty. He climbed into it and walkedover it, gun in one hand and flash in the other, searching for someburied figure. But there was nothing. The loft was fragrant with thenewly dried hay, sweet and empty. Woslosky descended the ladder again,the flash extinguished, and stood again on the barn floor, considering.Cusick was a man without imagination, and he had sworn that some one hadcome in. Then--
Suddenly there was a whirr of wings outside and above, excitedflutterings first, and then a general flight of the pigeons who roostedon the roof. Woslosky listened and slowly smiled.
"We've got him, boys," he said, without excitement. "Outside, and callthe others. He's on the roof."
Cusick whistled shrilly, and as the Pole ran out he met the otherscoming pell-mell toward him. He flung a guard of all five of them aroundthe barn, and himself walked off a hundred feet or so and gazed upward.The very outline of the ridge pole was indistinguishable, and he sworesoftly. In the hope of drawing an answering flash he fired, but withoutresult. The explosion echoed and reechoed, died away.
He called to Cusick, and had him try the same experiment, following theline of the gutter as nearly as possible in the darkness, on that side,and emptying his revolver. Still silence.
Woslosky began to doubt. The pigeons might have seen his flashlight,might have heard his own stealthy movements. He was intensely irritated.The shooting, if the alarm had been false, had ruined everything. Hesaw, as in a vision, Doyle's sneering face when he told him. Beside himCusick was reloading his revolver in the darkness.
Then, out of the night, came a call from the direction of the woods, andunintelligible at that distance.
"What's that?" Cusick said hoarsely.
Woslosky made no reply. He was listening. Some one was approaching, nowrunning, now stopping as though confused. Woslosky held his gun ready,and waited. Then, from a distance, he heard his name called.
He stepped inside the door of the barn and showed the light for amoment. Soon after the sentry floundered in, breathless and excited.
"I got one of them," he gasped. "Hit him with my gun. He's lying back bythe stone fence."
"Did you call out, or did he?"
"He did. That's how I knew it wasn't one of our fellows. He calledCameron, so he's the other one."
Woslosky drew a deep breath. Then it was Cameron on the roof. It wasCameron they wanted.
"He'll sleep for an hour or two, if he ever wakes up," Pink's assailantboasted. But Wo
slosky was taking no chances that night. He sent two menafter Pink, and began to pace the floor thoughtfully. If he could havewaited for daylight it would have been simple enough, but he did notknow how much time he had. He did not underestimate young Cameron'sintelligence, and it had occurred to him that that young Scot mightcannily have provided against his failure to return. Then, too, thestate constabulary had an uncomfortable habit of riding lonely backroads at night, and shots could be heard a long distance off.
He had never surveyed the barn roof closely, but he knew that it wassteeply pitched. Cameron, then, was probably braced somewhere in thegutter. The departure of the two men had left him short-handed, and hewaited impatiently for their return. With a ladder, provided it could bequietly placed, a man could shoot from a corner along two sides of theroof. With two ladders, at diagonal corners, they could get him. But acareful search discovered no ladders on the place.
He went out, and standing close against the wall for protection, calledup.
"We know you're there, Cameron," he said. "If you come down we won'thurt you. If you don't, we'll get you, and you know it."
But he received no reply.
Soon after that the two men carried in Pink Denslow, and laid him on thefloor of the barn. Then Woslosky tried again, more reckless this timewith anger. He stood out somewhat from the wall and called:
"One more chance, Cameron, or we'll put a bullet through your friendhere. Come down, or we'll--"
Something struck him heavily and he fell, with a bullet in the shoulder.He struggled to his feet and gained the shelter of the wall, his facetwisted with pain.
"All right," he said, "if that's the way you feel about it!"
He regained the barn and had his arm supported in an extemporized sling.Then he ordered Pink to be tied, and fighting down his pain consideredthe situation. Cameron was on the roof, and armed. Even if he had noextra shells he still had five shots in reserve, and he would not wasteany of them. Whoever tried to scale the walls would be done in at once;whoever attempted to follow him to the roof by way of the loft wouldbe shot instantly. And his own condition demanded haste; the bullet,striking from above, had broken his arm. Every movement was torture.
He thought of setting fire to the barn. Then Cameron would have thechoice of two things, to surrender or to be killed. He might get some ofthem first, however. Well, that was a part of the game.
He delivered a final ultimatum from the shelter of the doorway.
"I've just thought of something, Cameron," he called. "We're going tofire the barn. Your young friend is here, tied, and we'll leave himhere. Do you get that? Either throw down that gun of yours, and comedown, or I'm inclined to think you'll be up against it. I'll give you aminute or so to think it over."
At half-past eleven o'clock that night the first of four automobilesdrove into Friendship. It was driven by a hatless young man in araincoat over a suit of silk pajamas, and it contained four Countydetectives and the city Chief of Police. Behind it, but welloutdistanced, came the other cars, some of them driven by leadingcitizens in a state of considerable deshabille.
At a cross street in Friendship the lead car drew up, and flashlightswere turned on a road map in the rear of the car. There was someargument over the proper road, and a member of the state constabulary,riding up to investigate, showed a strong inclination to place themunder arrest.
It took a moment to put him right.
"Wish I could go along," he said, wistfully. "The place you want is backthere. I can't leave the town, but I'll steer you out. You'll probablyrun into some of our fellows back there."
He rode on ahead, his big black horse restive in the light from thelamps behind him. At the end of a lane he stopped.
"Straight ahead up there," he said. "You'll find--"
He broke off and stared ahead to where a dull red glare, reflected onthe low hanging clouds, had appeared over the crest of the hill.
"Something doing up there," he called suddenly. "Let's go."
He jerked his revolver free, dug his heels into the flanks of his horse,and was off on a dead run. Half way up the hill the car passed him, theblack going hard, and its rider's face, under the rim of his uniformhat, a stern profile. His reins lay loose on the animal's neck, and hewas examining his gun.
The road mounted to a summit, and dipped again. They were in a longvalley, and the burning barn was clearly outlined at the far end of it.One side was already flaming, and tongues of fire leaped out through theroof. The men in the car were standing now, doors open, ready to leap,while the car lurched and swayed over the uneven road. Behind them theyheard the clatter of the oncoming horse.
As they drew nearer they could see three watching figures against theburning building, and as they turned into the lane which led to thebarnyard a shot rang out and one of the figures dropped and lay still.There was a cry of warning from somewhere, and before the detectivescould leap from the car, the group had scattered, running wildly. Thestate policeman threw his horse back on its hunches, and fired withoutapparently taking aim at one of the running shadows. The man threw uphis arms and fell. The state policeman galloped toward him, dismountedand bent over him.
Firing as they ran, detectives leaped out of the car and gave chase,and so it was that the young gentleman in bedroom slippers and pajamas,standing in his car and shielding his eyes against the glare, saw acurious thing.
First of all, the roof blazed up brightly, and he perceived a humanfigure, hanging by its hands from the eaves and preparing to drop. Theyoung gentleman in pajamas was feeling rather out of things by thattime, so he made a hasty exit from his car toward the barn, losing aslipper as he did so, and yelling in a slightly hysterical manner. Itthus happened that he and the dropping figure reached the same spot atalmost the same moment, one result of which was that the young gentlemanin pajamas found himself struck a violent blow with a doubled-up fist,and at the same moment his bare right foot was tramped on with extremethoroughness.
The young gentleman in pajamas reeled back dizzily and gave tongue,while standing on one foot. The person he addressed was the stateconstable, and his instructions were to get the fugitive and kill him.But the fugitive here did a very strange thing. Through the handkerchiefwhich it was now seen he wore tied over his mouth, he told the runningpoliceman to go to perdition, and then with seeming suicidal intentrushed into the burning barn. From it he emerged a moment later,dragging a figure bound hand and foot, blackened with smoke, and withits clothing smoldering in a dozen places; a figure which alternatelycoughed and swore in a strangled whisper, but which found breath fora loud whoop almost immediately after, on its being immersed, as itpromptly was, in a nearby horse-trough.
Very soon after that the other cars arrived. They drew up and menemerged from them, variously clothed and even more variously armed, butall they saw was the ruined embers of the barn, and in the glowfive figures. Of the five one lay, face up to the sky, as though theprostrate body followed with its eyes the unkillable traitor soul ofone Cusick, lately storekeeper at Friendship. Woslosky, wounded forthe second time, lay on an automobile rug on the ground, consciousbut sullenly silent. On the driving seat of an automobile sat a younggentleman with an overcoat over a pair of silk pajamas, carefullyinspecting the toes of his right foot by the light of a match, whileanother young gentleman with a white handkerchief around his head wassitting on the running board of the same car, dripping water and ratherdazedly staring at the ruins.
And beside him stood a gaunt figure, blackened of face, minus eyebrowsand charred of hair, and considerably torn as to clothing. A figurewhich seemed disinclined to talk, and which gave its explanationsin short, staccato sentences. Having done which, it relapsed intouncompromising silence again.
Some time later the detectives returned. They had made no furthercaptures, for the refugees had known the country, and once outside thelight from the burning barn search was useless. The Chief of Policeapproached Willy Cameron and stood before him, eyeing him severely.
"The next t
ime you try to raid an anarchist meeting, Cameron," he said,"you'd better honor me with your confidence. You've probably learned alesson from all this."
Willy Cameron glanced at him, and for the first time that night, smiled.
"I have," he said; "I'll never trust a pigeon again." The Chief thoughthim slightly unhinged by the night's experience.
A Poor Wise Man Page 37
