The wrong boy!

For a moment I could not understand nor believe; and when the meaning of the words came to me, I groped in mental darkness, unable to come in touch with the significant facts by which I was surrounded. The solid earth had fallen from under me, and I struggled vainly to get footing in my new position.

But there was no time for speculation. Half in a daze I heard a roar of curses, orders, a crash of glass as the lamp was extinguished, and over all came the prolonged growl of a wolf-voice, hoarse and shaken with anger. There was a vision of a wolf-head rising above the outline of faces a few yards away, dark, distorted, fierce, with eyes that blazed threats, and in an instant I found myself in the center of a struggling, shouting, swearing mass of savage men, fighting with naught but the instinct of blind rage. Shots were fired, but for the most part it was a hand-to-hand struggle. The clearest picture that comes to me out of the confused tangle is that of Wainwright handling his pistol like a bowie knife, and trying to perform a surgical operation extensive enough to let a joke into Darby Meeker's skull.

I doubt not that I was as crazy as the rest. The berserker rage was on me, and I struck right and left. But in my madness there was one idea strong in my mind. It was to reach the evil face and snake-eyes of Tom Terrill, and stamp the life out of him. With desperate rage I shouldered and fought till his white face with its venomous hatred was next to mine, till the fingers of my left hand gripped his throat, and my right hand tried to beat out his brains with a six-shooter.

“Damn you!” he gasped, striking fiercely at me. “I've been waiting for you!”

I tightened my grip and spoke no word. He writhed and turned, striving to free himself. I had knocked his revolver from his hand, and he tried in vain to reach it. My grip was strong with the strength of madness, and the white face before me grew whiter except where a smear of blood closed the left eye and trickled down over the cheek beneath. A trace of fear stole into the venomous anger of the one eye that was unobscured, as he strove without success to guard himself from my blows. But he gave a sudden thrust, and with a sinuous writhe he was free, while I was carried back by the rush of men with the vague impression that something was amiss with me. Then a great light flamed up before me in which the struggling, shouting mob, the close hall and room, and the universe itself melted away, and I was alone.

The next impression that came to me was that of a voice from an immeasurable distance.

“He's coming to,” it said; and then beside it I heard a strange wailing cry.

“What is it?” I asked, trying to sit up. My voice seemed to come from miles away, and to belong to some other man.

“That's it, you're all right,” said the voice encouragingly, and about the half of Niagara fell on my face.

I sat up and beheld the room whirling about, the walls, the furniture, and the people dancing madly together to a strange wailing sound that carried me back to the dens of Chinatown. Then the mists before my eyes cleared away, and I found that I was on the floor of the inner bedroom and Wainwright had emptied a water-jug over me. The light of a small kerosene lamp gave a gloomy illumination to the place. Lockhart and Fitzhugh leaned against the door, and Wilson bent with Wainwright over me. The boy was sitting on the bed, crying shrilly over the melancholy situation.

I tried to stagger to my feet.

“Wait a bit,” said Wainwright. “You'll get your head in a minute.”

I felt acutely conscious already that I had my head. It seemed a very large head that had suffered from an internal explosion.

“What is it?” I asked, gathering my scattered wits. “What has happened?”

“We've been licked,” said Wainwright regretfully. “The rest of the boys got took, but we got in here. Fitz and me seen the nasty knock you got, and dragged you back, and when we got you here the parlor was full of the hounds, and Porter and Abrams and Brown was missing. We found you was cut, and we've tried to fix you up.”

I looked at my bandaged arm, and put one more count in the indictment against Terrill. He had tried to stab me over the heart at the time he had wrenched free, but he had merely slashed my arm. It was not a severe wound, but it gave me pain.

“Only a scratch,” said Wainwright.

I envied the philosophic calm with which he regarded it.

“It'll heal,” I returned shortly. “Where is the other gang? Are they gone?”

“No; there's half a dozen of 'em out in the parlor, I reckon.”

“You'd better tell him,” said Fitzhugh, shifting an unpleasant task.

“Well,” said Wainwright, “we heard orders given to shoot the first man that comes out before morning, but before all to kill you if you sticks your nose outside before sun-up.”

The amiable intentions of the victors set me to thinking. If it was important to keep me here till morning, it must be important to me to get out. There was no duty to keep me here, for I need fear no attack on the boy who was with us. I looked at my watch, and found it was near one o'clock.

“Tie those blankets together,” I ordered, as soon as I was able to get my feet.

The men obeyed me in silence, while Wainwright vainly tried to quiet the child. I was satisfied to have him cry, for the more noise he made the less our movements would be heard. I had a plan that I thought might be carried out.

While the others were at work, I cautiously raised the window and peered through the shutters. The rain was falling briskly, and the wind still blew a gale. I thought I distinguished the dark figure of a man on guard within a few feet of the building, and my heart sank.

“How many are in the parlor, Wilson?” I asked.

Wilson applied his eye to the keyhole.

“Can't see anybody but that one-eyed fellow, Broderick, but there might be more.”

A flash of memory came to me, and I felt in my pocket for Mother Borton's mysterious scrawl. “Give that to a one-eyed man,” she had said. It was a forlorn hope, but worth the trying.

“Hand this to Broderick,” I said, “as soon as you can do it without any one's seeing you.”

Wilson did not like the task, but he took the envelope and silently brought the door ajar. His first investigations were evidently reassuring, for he soon had half his body outside.

“He's got it,” he said on reappearing.

A little later there was a gentle tap at the door, and the head of the one-eyed man was thrust in.

“It's as much as my life's worth,” he whispered. “What do you want me to do?”

“How many men are in the street below here?”

“There's one; but more are in call.”

“Well, I want him got out of the way.”

“That's easy,” said Broderick, with a diabolical wink of his one eye. “I'll have him change places with me.”

“Good! How many men are here?”

“You don't need to know that. There's enough to bury you.”

“Have Meeker and Terrill gone?”

“Tom? He's in the next room here, and can count it a mercy of the saints if he gits out in a week. Meeker's gone with the old man. Well, I can't stay a-gabbin' any longer, or I'll be caught, and then the divil himsilf couldn't save me.”

I shuddered at the thought of the “old man,” and the shadow of Doddridge Knapp weighed on my spirits.

“Are you ready for an excursion, Fitzhugh?” I whispered.

He nodded assent.

“Well, we'll be out of here in a minute or two. Take that overcoat. I've got one. Now tie that blanket to the bedpost. No, it won't be long enough. You'll have to hold it for us, boys.”

I heard the change of guards below, and, giving directions to Wainwright, with funds to settle our account with the house, I blew out the lamp, quietly swung open the shutter and leaned over the sill.

“Hold on to the blanket, boys. Follow me, Fitz,” I whispered, and climbed out. The strain on my injured arm as I swung off gave me a burning pain, but I repressed the groan that came into my throat. I half-expected a bullet to bring me to the ground in a hurry, for I was not over-trustful of the good faith of Mother Borton's friend. But I got to the ground in safety, and was relieved when Fitzhugh stood beside me, and the improvised rope was drawn up.

“Where now?” whispered Fitzhugh.

“To the stable.”

As we slipped along to the corner a man stepped out before us.

“Don't shoot,” he said; “it's me,—Broderick. Tell Mother Borton I wouldn't have done it for anybody but her.”

“I'm obliged to you just the same,” I said. “And here's a bit of drink money. Now, where are my men?”

“Don't know. In the lockup, I reckon.”

“How is that?”

“Why, you see, Meeker tells the fellows here he has a warrant for you,—that you're the gang of burglars that's wanted for the Parrott murder. And he had to show the constable and the landlord and some others the warrant, too.”

“How many were hurt?”

“Six or seven. Two of your fellows looked pretty bad when they was carried out.”

We turned down a by-street, but as soon as the guard had disappeared we retraced our steps and hastened to the Thatcher stables.

The rain was whipped into our faces as we bent against the wind, and the whish and roar of the gale among the trees, and the rattle of loose boards and tins, as they were tossed and shaken behind the houses, gave a melancholy accompaniment to our hasty march.

“Hist!” said Fitzhugh in my ear. “Is that some one following us?”

I drew him into a corner, and peered back into the darkness.

“I can see no one.”

“I thought I heard a man running.”

“Wait a minute. If there is any one after us he must lose us right here.”

We listened in silence. Only the plash of water and the voice of the storm came to our ears.

“Well, if they are looking for us they have gone the other way. Come along,” I said.

We nearly missed the stable in the darkness, and it was several minutes before we roused Thatcher to a state in which he could put together the two ideas that we wanted to get in, and that it was his place to get up and let us in.

“Horses to-night?” he gasped, throwing up his hands. “Holy Moses! I couldn't think of letting the worst plug of the lot out in this storm.”

“Well, I want your best.”

“You'll have to do it, Dick,” said Fitzhugh with a few words of explanation. “He'll make it all right for you.”

“Where are you going?” said Thatcher.

“Oakland.”

He threw up his hands once more.

“Great Scott! you can't do it. The horses can't travel fifty miles at night and in this weather. You'd best wait for the morning train. The express will be through here before five.”

I hesitated a moment, but the chances of being stopped were too great.

“I must go,” I said decidedly. “I can't wait here.”

“I have it,” said Thatcher. “By hard riding you can get to Niles in time to catch the freight as it goes up from San Jose. It will get you down in time for the first boat, if that's what you want.”

“Good! How far is it?”

“We call it eighteen miles,—it's a little over that by the road. There's only one nasty bit. That's in the canyon.”

“I think we shall need the pleasure of your company,” I said.

The stableman was moved by a conflict of feelings. He was much indisposed to a twenty-mile ride in the storm and darkness; yet he was plainly unwilling to trust his horses unless he went with them. I offered him a liberal price for the service.

“It's a bad job, but if you must, you must,” he groaned. And he soon had three horses under the saddle.

I eyed the beasts with some disfavor. They were evidently half-mustang, and I thought undersized for such a journey. But I was to learn before the night was out the virtues of strength and endurance that lie in the blood of the Indian horse.

“Hist! What's that?” said Fitzhugh, extinguishing the light.

The voices of the storm and the uneasy champing of the horses were the only sounds that rewarded a minute's listening.

“We must chance it,” said I, after looking cautiously into the darkness, and finding no signs of a foe.

And in a moment more we were galloping down the street, the hoof-beats scarcely sounding in the softened earth of the roadway. Not a word was spoken after the start as we turned through the side streets to avoid the approaches to the hotel. I looked and listened intently, expecting each bunch of deeper darkness in the streets to start into life with shouts of men and crack of revolvers in an effort to stay our flight. Thatcher led the way, and Fitzhugh rode by my side.

“Look there!” cried Fitzhugh in my ear. “There's some one running to the hotel!”

I looked, and thought I could see a form moving through the blackness. The hotel could just be distinguished two blocks away. It might well be a scout of the enemy hastening to give the alarm.

“Never mind,” I said. “We've got the start.”

Thatcher suddenly turned to the west, and in another minute we were on the open highway, with the steady beat of the horses' hoofs splashing a wild rhythm on the muddy road.

The wind, which had been behind us, now whipped the rain into our faces from the left, half blinding us as the gusts sent the spray into our eyes, then tugged fiercely at coats and hats as if nothing could be so pleasing to the powers of the air as to send our raiment in a witch's flight through the clouds.

With the town once behind us, I felt my spirits rise with every stroke of the horse's hoofs beneath me. The rain and the wind were friends rather than foes. Yet my arm pained me sharply, and I was forced to carry the reins in the whip hand.

Here the road was broader, and we rode three abreast, silent, watchful, each busy with his own thoughts, and all alert for the signs of chase behind. Thrice my heart beat fast with the sound in my ears of galloping pursuers. Thrice I laughed to think that the patter of falling drops on the roadway should deceive my sense of sound. Here the track narrowed, and Thatcher shot ahead, flinging mud and water from his horse's heels fair upon us. There it broadened once more, and our willing beasts pressed forward and galloped beside the stableman's till the hoofs beat in unison.

“There!” said Thatcher, suddenly pulling his horse up to a walk. “We're five miles out, and they've got a big piece to make up if they're on our track. We'll breathe the horses a bit.”

The beasts were panting a little, but chafed at the bits as we walked them, and tossed their heads uneasily to the pelting of the storm.

“Hark!” I cried. “Did you hear that?” I was almost certain that the sound of a faint halloo came from behind us. I was not alone in the thought.

“The dern fools!” said Fitzhugh. “They want a long chase, I guess, to go through the country yelling like a pack of wild Injuns.”

“I reckon 'twas an owl,” said Thatcher; “but we might as well be moving. We needn't take no chances while we've got a good set of heels under us. Get up, boys.”

The willing brutes shot forward into the darkness at the word, and tossed the rain-drops from their ears with many an angry nod.

Of the latter part of the journey I have but a confused remembrance. I had counted myself a good rider in former days, but I had not mounted a horse for years. I had slept but little in forty-eight hours, and, worst of all, my arm pained me more and more. With the fatigue and the jar of the steady gallop, it seemed to swell until it was the body and I the poor appendage to it. My head ached from the blow it had got, and in a stupor of dull pain I covered the weary miles. But for the comfortable Mexican saddle I fear I should have sunk under the fatigue and distress of the journey and left friends and enemies to find their way out of the maze as best they might.

I have a dim recollection of splashing over miles of level road, drenched with water and buffeted by gusts of wind that faced us more and more, with the monotonous beat of hoofs ever in my ears, and the monotonous stride of the horse beneath me ever racking my tired muscles. Then we slackened pace in a road that wound in sharp descent through a gap in the hills, with the rush and roar of a torrent beneath and beside us, the wind sweeping with wild blasts through the trees that lined the way and covered the hillside and seeming to change the direction of its attack at every moment.

“We'll make it, I reckon,” said Thatcher, at last. “It's only two miles farther, and the train hasn't gone up yet.”

The horses by this time were well-blown. The road was heavy, and we had pressed them hard. Yet they struggled with spirit as they panted, and answered to the whip when we called on them for the last stretch as we once more found a level road.

There was no sign of life about the station as we drew our panting, steaming horses to a halt before it, and no train was in sight. The rain dripping heavily from the eaves was the only sound that came from it, and a dull glow from an engine that lay alone on a siding was the only light that was to be seen.

“What's the time?” asked Thatcher. “We must have made a quick trip.”

“Twenty minutes past three,” said I, striking a match under my coat to see my watch-face.

“Immortal snakes!” cried Thatcher. “I'm an idiot. This is Sunday night.”

I failed to see the connection of these startling discoveries, but I had spirit enough to argue the case. “It's Monday morning, now.”

“Well, it's the same thing. The freight doesn't run to-night.”

I awoke to some interest at this announcement.

“Why, it's got to run, or we must take to saddle again for the rest of the way.”

“These horses can't go five miles more at that gait, let alone twenty-five,” protested Thatcher.

“Well, then, we must get other horses here.”

“Come,” said Fitzhugh; “what's the use of that when there's an engine on the siding doing nothing?”

“Just the idea. Find the man in charge.”

But there did not appear to be any man in charge. The engineer and fireman were gone, and the watchman had been driven to cover by the foul weather.

We looked the iron horse over enviously.

“Why, this is the engine that came up with the special this noon,” said Fitzhugh. “I remember the number.”

“Good! We are ahead of the enemy, then. They haven't had a chance to get the wire, and we beat them on the road. We must find the engineer and get it ourselves.”

“I've got an idea,” said Fitzhugh. “It's this: why not take the machine without asking? I was a fireman once, and I can run it pretty well.”

I thought a moment on the risk, but the need was greater.

“Just the thing. Take the money for the horses to your friend there. I'll open the switch.”

In a few minutes Fitzhugh was back.

“I told him,” he chuckled. “He says it's a jail offense, but it's the only thing we can do.”

“It may be a case of life and death,” I said. “Pull out.”

“There's mighty little steam here—hardly enough to move her,” said Fitzhugh from the cab, stirring the fire.

But as he put his hand to the lever she did move easily on to the main track, and rested while I reset the switch.

Then I climbed back into the cab, and sank down before the warm blaze in a stupor of faintness as the engine glided smoothly and swiftly down the track.