In the Midst of Alarms, Robert Barr [read e book txt] 📗

summer air, untainted by city smoke, and over all the eternal serenity of the blue unclouded sky--how can human spite and human passion exist in such a paradise? Does it all not make you feel as if you were an innocent child again, with motives pure and conscience white?"

If Stoliker felt like an innocent child, he did not look it. With clouded brow he eagerly scanned the empty fields, hoping for help. But, although the constable made no reply, there was an answer that electrified Yates, and put all thought of the beauty of the country out of his mind. The dull report of a musket, far in front of them, suddenly broke the silence, followed by several scattering shots, and then the roar of a volley. This was sharply answered by the ring of rifles to the right. With an oath, Yates broke into a run.

"They're at it!" he cried, "and all on account of your confounded obstinacy I shall miss the whole show. The Fenians have opened fire, and the Canadians have not been long in replying."

The din of the firing now became incessant. The veteran in Yates was aroused. He was like an old war horse who again feels the intoxicating smell of battle smoke. The lunacy of gunpower shone in his gleaming eye.

"Come on, you loitering idiot!" he cried to the constable, who had difficulty in keeping pace with him; "come on, or, by the gods! I'll break your wrist across a fence rail and tear this brutal iron from it."

The savage face of the prisoner was transformed with the passion of war, and, for the first time that day, Stoliker quailed before the insane glare of his eyes. But if he was afraid, he did not show his fear to Yates.

"Come on, _you_!" he shouted, springing ahead, and giving a twist to the handcuffs well known to those who have to deal with refractory criminals. "I am as eager to see the fight as you are."

The sharp pain brought Yates to his senses again. He laughed, and said: "That's the ticket, I'm with you. Perhaps you would not be in such a hurry if you knew that I am going into the thick the fight, and intend to use you as a shield from the bullets."

"That's all right," answered the little constable, panting. "Two sides are firing. I'll shield you on one side, and you'll have to shield me on the other."

Again Yates laughed, and they ran silently together. Avoiding the houses, they came out at the Ridge Road. The smoke rolled up above the trees, showing where the battle was going on some distance beyond. Yates made the constable cross the fence and the road, and take to the fields again, bringing him around behind Bartlett's house and barn. No one was visible near the house except Kitty Bartlett, who stood at the back watching, with pale and anxious face, the rolling smoke, now and then covering her ears with her hands as the sound of an extra loud volley assailed them. Stoliker lifted up his voice and shouted for help.

"If you do that again," cried Yates, clutching him by the throat, "I'll choke you!"

But he did not need to do it again. The girl heard the cry, turned with a frightened look, and was about to fly into the house when she recognized the two. Then she came toward them. Yates took his hand away from the constable's throat.

"Where is your father or your brother?" demanded the constable.

"I don't know."

"Where is your mother?"

"She is over with Mrs. Howard, who is ill."

"Are you all alone?"

"Yes."

"Then I command you, in the name of the Queen, to give no assistance to this prisoner, but to do as I tell you."

"And I command you, in the name of the President," cried Yates, "to keep your mouth shut, and not to address a lady like that. Kitty," he continued in a milder tone, "could you tell me where to get a file, so that I may cut these wrist ornaments? Don't you get it. You are to do nothing. Just indicate where the file is. The law mustn't have any hold on you, as it seems to have on me."

"Why don't you make him unlock them?" asked Kitty.

"Because the villain threw away the key in the fields."

"He couldn't have done that."

The constable caught his breath.

"But he did. I saw him."

"And I saw him unlock them at breakfast. The key was on the end of his watch chain. He hasn't thrown that away."

She made a move to take out his watch chain but Yates stopped her.

"Don't touch him. I'm playing a lone hand here." He jerked out the chain, and the real key dangled from it.

"Well, Stoliker," he said, "I don't know which to admire most--your cleverness and pluck, my stupidity, or Miss Bartlett's acuteness of observation. Can we get into the barn, Kitty?"

"Yes; but you mustn't hurt him."

"No fear. I think too much of him. Don't you come in. I'll be out in a moment, like the medium from a spiritualistic dark cabinet."

Entering the barn, Yates forced the constable up against the square oaken post which was part of the framework of the building, and which formed one side of the perpendicular ladder that led to the top of the hay mow.

"Now, Stoliker," he, said solemnly, "you realize, of course, that I don't want to hurt you yet you also realize that I _must_ hurt you if you attempt any tricks. I can't take any risks, please remember that; and recollect that, by the time you are free again, I shall be in the State of New York. So don't compel me to smash your head against this post." He, with some trouble, unlocked the clasp on his own wrist; then, drawing Stoliker's right hand around the post, he snapped the same clasp on the constable's hitherto free wrist. The unfortunate man, with his cheek against the oak, was in the comical position of lovingly embracing the post.

"I'll get you a chair from the kitchen, so that you will be more comfortable--unless, like Samson, you can pull down the supports. Then I must bid you good-by."

Yates went out to the girl, who was waiting for him.

"I want to borrow a kitchen chair, Kitty," he said, "so that poor Stoliker will get a rest."

They walked toward the house. Yates noticed that the firing had ceased, except a desultory shot here and there across the country.

"I shall have to retreat over the border as quickly as I can," he continued. "This country is getting too hot for me."

"You are much safer here," said the girl, with downcast eyes. "A man has brought the news that the United States gunboats are sailing up and down the river, making prisoners of all who attempt to cross from this side."

"You don't say! Well, I might have known that. Then what am I to do with Stoliker? I can't keep him tied up here. Yet the moment he gets loose I'm done for."

"Perhaps mother could persuade him not to do anything more. Shall I go for her?"

"I don't think it would be any use. Stoliker's a stubborn animal. He has suffered too much at my hands to be in a forgiving mood. We'll bring him a chair anyhow, and see the effect of kindness on him."

When the chair was placed at Stoliker's disposal, he sat down upon it, still hugging the post with an enforced fervency that, in spite of the solemnity of the occasion, nearly made Kitty laugh, and lit up her eyes with the mischievousness that had always delighted Yates.

"How long am I to be kept here?" asked the constable.

"Oh, not long," answered Yates cheerily; "not a moment longer than is necessary. I'll telegraph when I'm safe in New York State; so you won't be here more than a day or two."

This assurance did not appear to bring much comfort to Stoliker.

"Look here," he said; "I guess I know as well as the next man when I'm beaten. I have been thinking all this over. I am under the sheriff's orders, and not under the orders of that officer. I don't believe you've done anything, anyhow, or you wouldn't have acted quite the way you did. If the sheriff had sent me, it would have been different. As it is, if you unlock those cuffs, I'll give you my word I'll do nothing more unless I'm ordered to. Like as not they've forgotten all about you by this time; and there's nothing on record, anyhow."

"Do you mean it? Will you act square?"

"Certainly I'll act square. I don't suppose you doubt that. I didn't ask any favors before, and I did what I could to hold you."

"Enough said," cried Yates. "I'll risk it."

Stoliker stretched his arms wearily above his head when he was released.

"I wonder," he said, now that Kitty was gone, "if there is anything to eat in the house?"

"Shake!" cried Yates, holding out his hand to him. "Another great and mutual sentiment unites us, Stoliker. Let us go and see."


CHAPTER XVIII.

The man who wanted to see the fight did not see it, and the man who did not want to see it saw it. Yates arrived on the field of conflict when all was over; Renmark found the battle raging around him before he realized that things had reached a crisis.

When Yates reached the tent, he found it empty and torn by bullets. The fortunes of war had smashed the jar, and the fragments were strewn before the entrance, probably by some disappointed man who had tried to sample the contents and had found nothing.

"Hang it all!" said Yates to himself, "I wonder what the five assistants that the _Argus_ sent me have done with themselves? If they are with the Fenians, beating a retreat, or, worse, if they are captured by the Canadians, they won't be able to get an account of this scrimmage through to the paper. Now, this is evidently the biggest item of the year--it's international, by George! It may involve England and the United States in a war, if both sides are not extra mild and cautious. I can't run the chance of the paper being left in the lurch. Let me think a minute. Is it my tip to follow the Canadians or the Fenians? I wonder is which is running the faster? My men are evidently with the Fenians, if they were on the ground at all. If I go after the Irish Republic, I shall run the risk of duplicating things; but if I follow the Canadians, they may put me under arrest. Then we have more Fenian sympathizers among our readers than Canadians, so the account from the invasion side of the fence will be the more popular. Yet a Canadian version would be a good thing, if I were sure the rest of the boys got in their work, and the chances are that the other papers won't have any reporters among the Canucks. Heavens! What is a man to do? I'll toss up for it. Heads, the Fenians."

He spun the coin in the air, and caught it. "Heads it is! The Fenians are my victims. I'm camping on their trail, anyhow. Besides, it's safer than following the Canadians, even though Stoliker has got my pass."