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

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Tired as he was, he stepped briskly through the forest. The scent of a big item was in his nostrils, and it stimulated him like champagne. What was temporary loss of sleep compared to the joy of defeating the opposition press?

A blind man might have followed the trail of the retreating army. They had thrown away, as they passed through the woods, every article that impeded their progress. Once he came on a man lying with his face in the dead leaves. He turned him over.

"His troubles are past, poor devil," said Yates, as he pushed on.

"Halt! Throw up your hands!" came a cry from in front of him.

Yates saw no one, but he promptly threw up his hands, being an adaptable man.

"What's the trouble?" he shouted. "I'm retreating, too."

"Then retreat five steps farther. I'll count the steps. One."

Yates strode one step forward, and then saw that a man behind a tree was covering him with a gun. The next step revealed a second captor, with a huge upraised hammer, like a Hercules with his club. Both men had blackened faces, and resembled thoroughly disreputable fiends of the forest. Seated on the ground, in a semicircle, were half a dozen dejected prisoners. The man with the gun swore fearfully, but his comrade with the hammer was silent.

"Come," said the marksman, "you blank scoundrel, and take a seat with your fellow-scoundrels. If you attempt to run, blank blank you, I'll fill you full of buckshot!"

"Oh, I'm not going to run, Sandy," cried Yates, recognizing him. "Why should I? I've always enjoyed your company, and Macdonald's. How are you, Mac? Is this a little private raid of your own? For which side are you fighting? And I say, Sandy, what's the weight of that old-fashioned bar of iron you have in your hands? I'd like to decide a bet. Let me heft it, as you said in the shop."

"Oh, it's you, is it?" said Sandy in a disappointed tone, lowering his gun. "I thought we had raked in another of them. The old man and I want to make it an even dozen."

"Well, I don't think you'll capture any more. I saw nobody as I came through the woods. What are you going to do with this crowd?"

"Brain 'em," said Macdonald laconically, speaking for the first time. Then he added reluctantly: "If any of 'em tries to escape."

The prisoners were all evidently too tired and despondent to make any attempt at regaining their liberty. Sandy winked over Macdonald's shoulder at Yates, and by a slight side movement of his head he seemed to indicate that he would like to have some private conversation with the newspaper man.

"I'm not your prisoner, am I?" asked Yates.

"No," said Macdonald. "You may go if you like, but not in the direction the Fenians have gone."

"I guess I won't need to go any farther, if you will give me permission to interview your prisoners. I merely want to get some points about the fight."

"That's all right," said the blacksmith, "as long as you don't try to help them. If you do, I warn you there will be trouble."

Yates followed Sandy into the depths of the forest, out of hearing of the others, leaving Macdonald and his sledge-hammer on guard.

When at a safe distance, Sandy stopped and rested his arms on his gun, in a pathfinder attitude.

"Say," he began anxiously, "you haven't got some powder and shot on you by any chance?"

"Not an ounce. Haven't you any ammunition?"

"No, and haven't had all through the fight. You see, we left the shop in such a hurry we never thought about powder and ball. As soon as a man on horseback came by shouting that there was a fight on, the old man he grabbed his sledge, and I took this gun that had been left at the shop for repairs, and off we started. I'm not sure that it would shoot if I had ammunition, but I'd like to try. I've scared some of them Fee-neens nigh to death with it, but I was always afraid one of them would pull a real gun on me, and then I don't know just what I'd 'a' done."

Sandy sighed, and added, with the air of a man who saw his mistake, but was somewhat loath to acknowledge it: "Next battle there is you won't find me in it with a lame gun and no powder. I'd sooner have the old man's sledge. It don't miss fire." His eye brightened as he thought of Macdonald. "Say," he continued, with a jerk of his head back over his shoulder, "the boss is on the warpath in great style, aint he?"

"He is," said Yates, "but, for that matter, so are you. You can swear nearly as well as Macdonald himself. When did you take to it?"

"Oh, well, you see," said Sandy apologetically, "it don't come as natural to me as chewing, but, then, somebody's got to swear. The old man's converted, you know."

"Ah, hasn't he backslid yet?"

"No, he hasn't. I was afraid this scrimmage was going to do for him, but it didn't; and now I think that if somebody near by does a little cussing,--not that anyone can cuss like the boss,--he'll pull through. I think he'll stick this time. You'd ought to have seen him wading into them d--d Fee-neens, swinging his sledge, and singing 'Onward, Christian soldiers.' Then, with me to chip in a cuss word now and again when things got hot, he pulled through the day without ripping an oath. I tell you, it was a sight. He bowled 'em over like nine-pins. You ought to 'a' been there."

"Yes," said Yates regretfully. "I missed it, all on account of that accursed Stoliker. Well, there's no use crying over spilled milk, but I'll tell you one thing, Sandy: although I have no ammunition, I'll let you know what I have got. I have, in my pocket, one of the best plugs of tobacco that you ever put your teeth into."

Sandy's eyes glittered. "Bless you!" was all he could say, as he bit off a corner of the offered plug.

"You see, Sandy, there are compensations in this life, after all; I thought you were out."

"I haven't had a bite all day. That's the trouble with leaving in a hurry."

"Well, you may keep that plug, with my regards. Now, I want to get back and interview those fellows. There's no time to be lost."

When they reached the group, Macdonald said:

"Here's a man says he knows you, Mr. Yates. He claims he is a reporter, and that you will vouch for him."

Yates strode forward, and looked anxiously at the prisoners, hoping, yet fearing, to find one of his own men there. He was a selfish man, and wanted the glory of the day to be all his own. He soon recognized one of the prisoners as Jimmy Hawkins of the staff of a rival daily, the New York _Blade_. This was even worse than he had anticipated.

"Hello, Jimmy!" he said, "how did you get here?"

"I was raked in by that adjective fool with the unwashed face."

"Whose a--fool?" cried Macdonald in wrath, and grasping his hammer. He boggled slightly as he came to the "adjective," but got over it safely. It was evidently a close call, but Sandy sprang to the rescue, and cursed Hawkins until even the prisoners turned pale at the torrent of profanity. Macdonald looked with sad approbation at his pupil, not knowing that he was under the stimulus of newly acquired tobacco, wondering how he had attained such proficiency in malediction; for, like all true artists, he was quite unconscious of his own merit in that direction.

"Tell this hammer wielder that I'm no anvil. Tell him that I'm a newspaper man, and didn't come here to fight. He says that if you guarantee that I'm no Fenian he'll let me go."

Yates sat down on a fallen log, with a frown on his brow. He liked to do a favor to a fellow-creature when the act did not inconvenience himself, but he never forgot the fact that business was business.

"I can't conscientiously tell him that, Jimmy," said Yates soothingly. "How am I to know you are not a Fenian?"

"Bosh!" cried Hawkins angrily. "Conscientiously? A lot you think of conscience when there is an item to be had."

"We none of us live up to our better nature, Jimmy," continued Yates feelingly. "We can but do our best, which is not much. For reasons that you might fail to understand, I do not wish to run the risk of telling a lie. You appreciate my hesitation, don't you, Mr. Macdonald? You would not advise me to assert a thing I was not sure of, would you?"

"Certainly not," said the blacksmith earnestly.

"You want to keep me here because you are afraid of me," cried the indignant _Blade_ man. "You know very well I'm not a Fenian."

"Excuse me, Jimmy, but I know nothing of the kind. I even suspect myself of Fenian leanings. How, then, can I be sure of you?"

"What's your game?" asked Hawkins more calmly, for he realized that he himself would not be slow to take advantage of a rival's dilemma.

"My game is to get a neat little account of this historical episode sent over the wires to the _Argus_. You see, Jimmy, this is my busy day. When the task is over, I will devote myself to your service, and will save you from being hanged, if I can; although I shall do so without prejudice, as the lawyers say, for I have always held that that will be the ultimate end of all the _Blade_ staff.

"Look here, Yates; play fair. Don't run in any conscientious guff on a prisoner. You see, I have known you these many years."

"Yes, and little have you profited by a noble example. It is your knowledge of me that makes me wonder at your expecting me to let you out of your hole without due consideration."

"Are you willing to make a bargain?

"Always--when the balance of trade is on my side."

"Well, if you give me a fair start, I'll give you some exclusive information that you can't get otherwise."

"What is it?"

"Oh, I wasn't born yesterday, Dick."

"That is interesting information, Jimmy, but I knew it before. Haven't you something more attractive to offer?"

"Yes, I have. I have the whole account of the expedition and the fight written out, all ready to send, if I could get my clutches on a telegraph wire. I'll hand it over to you, and allow you to read it, if you will get me out of this hole, as you call it. I'll give you permission to use the information in any way you choose, if you will extricate me, and all I ask is a fair start in the race for a telegraph office."

Yates pondered over the proposition for some moments.

"I'll tell you what I'll do, Jimmy," he finally said. "I'll buy that account from you, and give you more money than the _Blade_ will. And when I get back to New York I'll place you on the staff of the _Argus_ at a higher salary than the _Blade_ gives you--taking your own word for the amount."

"What! And leave my paper in the lurch? Not likely."

"Your paper is