The Forfeit Part 47

He heard a crash and rending of woodwork. He could see nothing. He was incapable of further effort. The end had come all too soon. He staggered blindly, helplessly. His tottering limbs gave under him.

Suffocation gripped him by the throat. He was conscious of the rush of a figure toward him. The sound of his name shrieked in a woman's voice. Then there were shots fired. He heard them. And it seemed there were many of them, and the sound was blurred, and vague, and distant from his ears. He fell. He knew he fell. For hours it seemed to him he continued to fall in an abyss of blackness that was wholly horrifying. It was a blackness peopled with hideous invisible shadows.

So impenetrable was the inky void that even sound had no place in it.

CHAPTER XXVI

UNDER THE VEIL

There was no moon. Only a starry sheen lit the night. A wonderful peace had descended upon the hills. The quiet was the hush of the still prairie night. Teeming maybe with restless life; but it was a life invisible, and rarely audible. Nevertheless the hush was merely a veil. A veil which concealed, but had no power to sweep away the garnered harvest of violent human pa.s.sions.

The figure of a man lay stretched upon his back on the bank of the river. His head was carefully pillowed. A covering had been spread over the upper body, as though to hide that which lay beneath, rather than yield warmth and comfort on the summer night. The covering was a coat, a woman's coat, and the owner of it sat crouching over her charge.

Nan stirred. She reached out and tucked the long skirts of the coat under the man's shoulders with that mother instinct at once so solicitous, so tender. She s.h.i.+fted her position which had become cramped with her long vigil. These were moments of darkness, literal and mental. Her anxiety and dread were almost overwhelming. The waiting seemed interminable.

She raised her eyes from her yearning regard of the still, bandaged head with its pale features. She sighed, as she turned them in another direction, toward an object lying beneath the shadow of a great red willow near by. It was a dark object, huddled and, like the other, quite still. A curious sort of fascination held her for some moments, then, almost reluctantly, as though impelled by the trend of her feelings, her gaze wandered in the direction whence was wafted toward her a pungent reek of burning. It was the dimly outlined skeleton of the station house, roofless and partly fallen, white-ashed and still faintly smoking.

For long moments she regarded this sign of the destruction which had been wrought. Nor was the sigh which escaped her wholly of regret. A deep stirring was in her heart. She was thinking of the heroic battle which the station home had witnessed. She was thinking of the desperate odds one man had faced within those four walls. She was thinking, too, of the victory which ultimately had been his. But the cost. She shuddered. And her eyes came back to the white upturned features of the man before her.

She started. The man's eyes were open. Tenderly she raised a hand and smoothed the cold forehead with its soft palm. Tears of emotion had gathered in her eyes on the instant. But they did not overflow down her cheeks.

The eyes closed again. The lids moved slowly, as though reluctant to perform their office. The girl literally held her breath. Would they open again? Or---- Her question was answered almost on the instant.

They reopened. This time even more widely. They were staring straight up at the starlit sky, quite unmoving. There was no consciousness in them, and barely life.

Nan waited for some long apprehensive moments. Her heart was full of a wild, new-born hope. But fear held her, too. At last she moved. She withdrew herself gently but swiftly. Then she stood up, a picture of dapper womanhood in the white s.h.i.+rt-waist and loose riding breeches which the coat spread over the man's body should have held concealed.

A moment later the darkness swallowed her up as she sped down the trail which pa.s.sed near by.

With her going there crept into the man's vacant eyes the first real sign of life.

Five minutes later the girl was back at his side. But she had not returned alone. Bud was with her, and together they bent over the prostrate form. The girl was kneeling. She had gently taken possession of one of the bandaged hands lying inert at the man's side.

Tenderly enough she held it between her own soft palms and chafed it, while her s.h.i.+ning eyes, yielding all the secrets of her devoted heart, gazed yearningly down into his.

"Jeff!" she murmured, in a low, eager tone. "Jeff!"

There was no response. The eyes were fixed and staring.

Bud had less scruples in his anxious impatience.

"Say, that ain't no sort o' way to wake him, Nan," he whispered hoa.r.s.ely. Then in his deep gruff voice he displayed his better understanding. "Say, Jeff! You ken hear me, boy. You're jest foolin'. Say, hark to this. You beat 'em. You beat 'em single-handed, an' shot 'em plumb down."

Curiously enough there was almost instant result, and Bud's satisfaction became evident. The staring eyes relaxed their regard of the starry heavens. The lids flickered, then the eyes themselves turned in the direction whence came those sonorous tones.

"You ken hear?"

Bud's words came on the instant, and were full of triumph. Then he turned to the girl who had promptly relinquished Jeff's hand.

"We ain't got a thing to hand him, 'cep' it's water," he said half-angrily. "We can't jest move him, not nothin', till the boys git along with the wagon, an' that blamed dope merchant gits around. What in h.e.l.l ken we do?"

"Wait."

Nan's finality robbed her father of his complaint.

"Guess we'll hev to. Say----"

"Yes?"

"Do you guess he ken talk if he feels that way?"

But Nan was no longer giving him any attention. All her thoughts, all her being was for the man before them.

A faint tinge of color was creeping under his skin, up to the soft white wrapping fastened about his fire-scorched forehead. Even in the starlight it was plainly visible to the girl's eager eyes. There was something else, too. The look in his eyes had completely changed. To Nan there was something approaching the shadow of a smile.

She moved close to his side so that she could reach out and give him support. Then she gave the father at her side his orders.

"Get water, Dad--quick!" she demanded.

Bud demurred.

"I only got my hat," he said helplessly.

"It'll do. But get it."

Bud moved away, with the heavy haste of two hundred and ten pounds of mental disturbance.

The moment he had gone a faint sigh escaped the injured man. Nan held her breath. Would he--speak? She would give worlds to hear the sound of his voice, She had believed him dying. Now a wild hope surged. If he would--could speak, it seemed to her simple logic that he must--live.

"Nan!"

The word was distinct, but, oh, the weakness of voice. The girl thrilled.

"Yes, Jeff. I'm here. I'm right beside you."

"Tell me--things."

The girl's heart sank. In a flash she remembered all there was to tell. Why had his first thoughts on returning life been of these--things? Yet it was like him--so like him. She drew a deep breath and resorted to subterfuge.

"It's as Dad shouted at you just now, Jeff. You beat them all--lone-handed. But you mustn't talk. Don't worry about them.

Guess they're not worth it. You've been shot up, Jeff, an' Dad an' I we've just fixed you the best we know, an' the boys have gone right in for a wagon, an' a doctor. The doc's got to get in from Moose Creek, twenty miles away. That's what scares me."

The smile in the man's eyes had deepened.

"Don't--get--scared, Nan. I'm--not dying."

The girl thrilled at the a.s.surance in the tired voice. But the thrill pa.s.sed as swiftly as it came. She knew what would follow when Jeff had gathered sufficient strength.

Sure enough he went on presently:

"I remember everything--till--I dropped," he said haltingly. "What happened--after--that? Y'see--I--heard--firing."