14

Cunningham laughed a little as the horse’s hoofs clattered beneath and the white road shot past. Maria was clinging to his shoulders.

“Safe so far,” he told her, “but now we have to take to the woods. The hand of every man is against us, Maria. Do you trust me to get you away?”

“Anywhere,” she said softly. “You know I do.”

A motorcar came racing toward them over the rough road. It was not fit going for an automobile and the car swayed and lurched from side to side with dangerous abandon. Cunningham swerved his horse out of the road. The car slowed and stopped with a screaming of brakes. Cunningham’s hand fell to his weapon.

Gray tumbled out of the cloud of dust that enveloped the machine.

“Cunningham,” he panted. “Just found—Vladimir had bribed the telegraph operator. None of my wires got through. Found an amateur radio fan and he sent my message. Relay League. Help’s coming. By airplane. Bendale is a town of lunatics. Wild yarns have gone into it and a mob is coming out to wipe out the Strangers. They think they’ve been burning children. You’ve got to get up to the Strangers. Tell ’em about planes. Tell them to get going and keep moving or there ’ll be a massacre. Help’s coming as fast as it can get here. But for God’s sake keep them away from the mob. They’ll be wiped out!”

“I’m going to get Maria away,” said Cunningham defiantly. “I’m going to get her out of this state and marry her. The Strangers and anybody else can go to the devil!”

Gray, choking upon the dust he had swallowed, gasped out a raging order.

“Don’t be a fool!” he cried. “Look at her clothes! She’s in the Strangers’ costume! You’ll be spotted if you’re seen, and three townships are raving crazy! A dog couldn’t get away from here like that! You’ll be shot at by every damned fool in three counties and arrested anywhere else you go! Get up in the hills and keep the Strangers moving! The planes may not get here until dark, and they can’t land in the hills in the darkness. I’m going to meet them at Hatton Junction and guide them here. You get up in the hills and keep the Strangers moving or there’ll be a massacre! That mob will even wipe out the children! Everybody’s crazy! You’ve got to save them, Cunningham! You’ve got to!”

And Cunningham knew that he was telling the truth. The Strange People might not fight, if he begged them not to. To desert them would mean a tragedy in the hills. The people about them were no more accountable than so many lunatics. But to ride among the Strange People with Maria upon his saddle! ... They would know that she loved him, and they would believe that she had told him their secret. They would never let him leave the hills again alive.

It was death either way, and probably for them both. He looked at Maria and found her eyes misty with tears.

“Let me go,” she said suddenly, with a sob in her throat. “You go away. I will go up to my people and tell them what this man has said. Without me, you can escape. My people will tell me to die, but you will not know who we are and you will never hate me or despise me....”

Cunningham caught her hand and laughed shortly.

“No, my dear,” he said grimly. “We won’t be separated. It’s a choice between being shot like mad dogs or facing your people. We’ll ride up into the hills. We’ll tell your people that help is coming to hold off the mob. Their lives will be safe and their secret too, for all of me. And if we die, it will be decently. I’ve two guns for the pair of us.”

He found himself laughing as he waved his hand at Gray and drove his horse at the steep slopes that led upward to the tree-clad heights in which the Strangers lurked.

As the trees closed over their heads he smiled again and swung Maria before him. He gave the horse its head and the animal dropped to a plodding walk. And they talked softly. They had but a little while to be alone and they had never talked the tender foolishness that lovers know. Now they were riding at a snail’s pace upward to the stern vengeance of the Strangers upon a woman of their number who had loved outside the clan.

They spoke in whispers, not to avoid detection but because there are some things that are too tender to be spoken aloud. And their eyes spoke other things for which nobody has ever found words. Maria’s arm was about Cunningham’s neck and her lips were never far from his own and it seemed as if all trouble and care were very far away, though they were riding up to death.

The trees rustled above them. Birds sang all about them. And they rode through an age-old forest upon a weary horse, a scarecrow of a man with a bandaged shoulder and a girl in barbaric finery, gazing at him with tear-misted eyes. And as they rode they talked softly, and now and then they smiled, and in every speech and glance and gesture there was an aching happiness and a wistful regret.

All this was very foolish, but it was the proper and authentic conclusion for a man who has followed the route to romance and adventure to its appointed ending.

But there came a little rustling in the undergrowth beside them as they went on climbing up to the heights. Then other rustlings. Far away there was a whistle as if someone signaled. And very suddenly an arm reached out from the thick brushwood and seized the horse’s bridle. One of the Strangers stepped into view and gazed steadily up into the muzzle of Cunningham’s revolver.

From all about them men materialized as if by magic. No man laid a hand on any weapon. They looked at the pair upon the horse gravely, without rancor but with infinite resolution.

And Stephan, Maria’s father, came into view and regarded them with weary, hopeless eyes.

“Why did you come back?” he asked in a queer and resolute despair. “You knew what we would have to do. Why did you come back?”