13

Then the news took a definitely dangerous turn. A farmer who was hastening to Coulters was stopped by a band of Strangers. They had taken his shotgun and shells from him, contemptuously tossing him half a dozen of the square lumps of gold. The gold would pay for the gun ten times over, but men raged. Another man came in foaming at the mouth, with a similar tale. He had seen a Stranger and raised his gun to fire as at a wild beast. A knife had flicked at him and gone through the fleshy part of his arm. They took his gun and shells, leaving gold to pay for them.

No one saw anything odd in firing on the Strangers at sight. But everyone grew hysterically excited at the thought of the Strangers taking guns with which to shoot back. Then a man rode up on a lathered horse, shouting hoarsely that twenty Strangers had raided a country store some six miles away. They had appeared suddenly. When they left they took half a dozen shotguns—the whole stock—three rifles, and all the ammunition in the store. They left gold to pay for the lot.

Cunningham heard all this as one would hear outside sounds during a nightmare. He was like a madman. He would have gone rushing through the place in search of Maria but that it was still broad daylight and there were twenty or more armed men in the place, all mad with excitement and fury. As it was, Cunningham was in a cold, clear-headed rage. He went to his own room and packed his pockets with cartridges.

Vladimir was right in one respect. The natives were in no mood to listen to the truth. They would believe nothing that he told them. He was suspect, in any event. They classed him with the Strangers, and they classed the Strangers with the beasts. Fighting such men was not fighting law and order. The sheriff was bribed. The rest were wild with rage and terror. They did not know they were catspaws for Vladimir. Even the sheriff probably knew but little of Vladimir’s plans.

He went into Gray’s room and searched for a possible second revolver. As he pawed grimly among Gray’s possessions he heard the sheriff speaking, through a partition. Gray’s room was next to that occupied by Vladimir, and Cunningham abruptly realized how Gray had obtained much information.

“I’m doin’ my best to hold ’em,” the sheriff was saying anxiously, “but it’s gettin’ to be a tough job. I’d better send for militia——”

“Fool!” snarled Vladimir. “What do I give you money for? There will be no fighting! We will march into the hills. We will pen up these folk—surround them. If your mob kills a few, what harm? Afterward you shall pick out your murderers—as many as you choose! They will confess to anything you choose, after I have spoken to them. And then the rest of the Strangers will move away. They will go away forever, with me! I will take them!”

“But it looks bad——”

“They will lick my boots,” rasped Viadimir. “They will crawl upon their knees and beg me for mercy. And I will give you four men to hang. They will confess to their crime. And I will take the rest away.”

Cunningham nodded grimly. At least this clarified the situation a little. Vladimir was afraid of the Strangers’ secret becoming known. He only wanted to get them away. If he could find Maria and she would tell him, and Gray brought the help he had promised——

Cunningham was not thinking for himself, except as his liberty meant safety for Maria, and secondarily for the Strange People. But he would have to go into every room in the hotel filled with armed and suspicious men. It was lucky he had two guns. There would surely be shooting. There would probably be a bullet or two for him.

“Now send your deputies to arrest Cunningham,” snapped Vladimir on the other side of the wall. “Tell them to shoot him if he resists. He was teaching the Strangers to shoot and advising them to resist arrest. That is enough.”

“I’ll send a bunch,” whined the sheriff uneasily. “He’s a desp’rit character. Talkin’ about accusin’ me of takin’ bribes....”

“You’ll be rich for life when this is over,” Vladimir purred. “Remember that!”

The door closed behind the sheriff. Cunningham grinned savagely. He was to have no chance at all. They had been sent to arrest him, after Vladimir had given him news that would ensure his resisting. He would resist, right enough! And then a wild and utterly reckless scheme sprang full-bodied into Cunningham’s head.

He swung the door to—and heard a squeaking on the other side of the partition as if a closet door had been opened. And then Vladimir spoke purringly in that unknown language of the Strangers!

There could be but one person to whom he would be speaking at such a time and in that language. Cunningham’s heart leaped violently. He heard voices downstairs—men coming up to arrest him in his own room.

He darted out in the hall and plunged into Vladimir’s room, a ready revolver upraised. Vladimir whirled and stared into its muzzle with ashen cheeks. For once there was no purred jibe upon his lips, because Cunningham’s face was the face of a killer after he had seen Maria in the clothes-closet, bound hand and foot and with a gag in her mouth. She had been staring at Vladimir in horror, but her eyes flamed at sight of Cunningham.

For the fraction of a second they gazed at each other. Then her eyes signaled frantic warning. Cunningham whirled and dashed his revolver blindly in Vladimir’s face as his hand came up with an automatic. Vladimir stumbled and crashed backward to the floor.

Footsteps crashed on the steps outside. Nearly all the men in the hotel, it seemed, were coming up in a body to see to the arrest of Cunningham. But he paid no attention. He was ripping away at the gag and tearing loose the bonds that held Maria fast.

“Vladimir told me you’d been captured,” he panted, “and said you’d be mobbed tonight. Now he’s sent a gang to arrest me, knowing I’d resist and get myself killed. We’ve got to make a break for it. All right?”

Maria’s eyes were like stars. Cunningham kissed her suddenly.

“My God!” he laughed shakily. “One can think of love-making even at a time like this! Listen!”

The crowd on the stairs had reached the top. They crowded down the hall before Cunningham’s own door. There they hesitated, shuffling uneasily. At last a voice called loudly, “Open in the name of the law!”

There was no answer from Cunningham’s empty room. They waited breathlessly. A man pounded cautiously on the panel of the door.

“Open in th’ name of th’ law!”

Still silence.

“M-maybe he j-jumped outer th’ window,” suggested someone uneasily.

“R-rush him,” urged a man safely in the rear.

Cunningham and Maria, two rooms away, heard a hand laid on the other room’s door. They heard it fling open with a crash and the scuttling of feet as the mob of hastily deputized men jumped to one side to be out of the way of possible bullets. Dead silence greeted them. And suddenly they crowded into the deserted place.

“Now!” said Cunningham sharply.

He darted out, Maria running with him. She fled to the stairs and down them, Cunningham two steps in the rear. A single straggler of the men who were to have arrested him remained in the hall. He turned his head stupidly at sound of their rush. His mouth dropped open, but before his shout they were half-way to the ground floor.

Cunningham stopped at the foot of the stairs to fire three times up at the ceiling of the second floor. A cloud of smoke filled the hall, and heads that had craned over the balustrade withdrew, in a panic. A dozen paces more and the fugitives were out in the roadway. Half a dozen horses were tethered there and Cunningham tore loose the reins and leaped on one. Maria sprang up lightly behind him and he kicked the animal madly with his heels. It sprang into a panic-stricken gallop and was off down the road.

They were nearly out of sight before the first of their pursuers had run out into the road behind them. Then half a dozen puffs of smoke showed that they were fired on, but an instant later they were out of sight around a bend in the road.