MISS DANGERFIELD TAKES A PRISONER
A dozen men carrying rifles across their saddle-bows rode away from Habersham's farm on the outskirts of Turner Court House and struck a rough trail that led a devious course over the hills. At their head rode the guide of the expedition—a long silent man on a mule. Griswold and Habersham followed immediately behind him on horseback. Their plans had been carefully arranged before they left their rendezvous, and save for an occasional brief interchange between the prosecuting attorney and the governor's special representative, the party jogged on in silence. Habersham's recruits were, it may be said, farmers of the border, who had awaited for years just such an opportunity as now offered to avenge themselves upon the insolent Appleweights. Nearly every man of the party had some private score to settle, but they had all been sworn as special constables and were sobered by the knowledge that the power of the state of South Carolina was back of them.
Thus, at the very hour that Mr. Ardmore and his lieutenants rode away from the lonely anchorage of the caboose, Professor Griswold and his cavalcade set out for Mount Nebo Church. While the master of Ardsley was revenging himself upon the Duke of Ballywinkle, his dearest friend, against whom he had closed the doors of his house, was losing no time in setting forth upon a mission which, if successful, would seriously interfere with all Mr. Ardmore's hopes and plans. Ardmore's scarlet fever telegram no longer rankled in the breast of the associate professor of admiralty of the University of Virginia, for Griswold knew that no matter what might be the outcome of his effort to uphold the dignity of the sovereign state of South Carolina, his participation in any such adventure would so cover his friend with envy that he would have him forever at his mercy. Thomas Ardsley deserved punishment—there was no doubt of that, and as Professor Griswold was not more or less than a human being, he took comfort of the reflection.
The guide of the expedition pushed his mule forward at a fast walk, making no excuses to Griswold and Habersham for the roughness of the trails he chose, nor troubling to give warning of sharp turns where a horse, being less wise than a mule, tobogganed madly before finding a foothold. Occasionally a low hanging limb switched the associate professor sharply across the face, but his temper continued serene where the trail was darkest and steepest, and he found himself ignoring Habersham's occasional polite questions about the university in his effort to summon up in memory certain ways of Barbara Osborne which baffled him. He deplored the time he had given to the study of a stupid profession like the law, when, if he had applied himself with equal diligence to poetry, he might have made for himself a place at least as high in belles-lettres. In his college days he had sometimes thrummed a guitar, and there was a little song in his heart, half formed, and with only a line or two as yet tangible, which he felt sure he could write down on paper if it were not that the bugles summoned him to war; it was a song of a white rose which a lover wore in his heart, through winter and summer, and it never changed, and the flight of the seasons had no manner of effect on it.
"Check up, cain't you?" snarled the man on the mule, laying hold of Griswold's rein; and thus halted, Griswold found that they had been circling round a curiously symmetrical, thickly wooded hill, and had finally come to a clearing whence they were able to gaze far off toward the north.
"We are almost out of bounds," said Habersham, pointing. "Over there somewhere, across the hills, lies North Carolina. I am as thoroughly lost as you can possibly be; but these men know where they are. How far is it, Billy"—he addressed the silent guide—"to Mount Nebo?"
"About four mile, and I reckon we'd better let out a leetle now or they'll sing the doxology before we git thar."
"What's that light away off there?" asked Habersham.
The guide paused to examine it, and the faint glow far down the vale seemed to perplex him. He spoke to one or two other natives and they viewed the light ruminatively, as is their way.
"Thet must be on Ardmore's land," said the leader finally. "It shoots out all sorts o' ways round hyeh, and I reckon thet's about wheh Raccoon Creek cuts through."
"That's very likely," said Habersham. "I've seen the plat of what Ardmore owns on this side the border at the court house, and I remember that there's a long strip in Mingo County that is Ardsley land. Ardmore has houses of one kind and another scattered all over the estate and those lights may be from one of them. You know the place, don't you?"
"Yes; I've visited there," admitted Griswold. "But we'd better give it a wide berth. The whole estate is simply infested with scarlet fever. They're quarantined."
"I guess that's a joke," said Habersham. "There's a big party on there now, and I have seen some of the guests in Turner's within a day or two."
"Within how many days?" demanded Griswold, his heart sinking at the thought that Ardmore had lied to him to keep him away from Ardsley—from Ardmore's house! The thought of it really hurt him now. Could it be possible that Ardmore had guests so distinguished that he, Griswold, was not worthy to make their acquaintance! He experienced a real pang as he thought that here he was, within a short ride of the home of his dearest friend, the man whom most he loved of all men, and that he had been denied the door of that friend's house.
"Come on!" called Habersham.
Half the company rode ahead to gain the farther side of the church; the remainder, including Griswold and Habersham, soon dismounted and tied their horses out of sight of the country road which they had latterly been following.
"We are in plenty of time," said Habersham, looking at his watch. "The rest of the boys are closing in from the other side and they will be ready for Appleweight when he finishes his devotions. We've been studying the old man's habits and he has a particular place where he ties his horse back of the church. It's a little apart from the fence where most of the congregation hitch and he chose it, no doubt, because in case of a surprise he would have plenty of room for maneuvering. Two men are going to lay for him, seize and gag him and carry him into the wood back of the church; and then we're off across the state line to lock him up in jail at Kildare and give Governor Dangerfield the shock of his life."
"It sounds simple enough; but it won't be long before Appleweight's friends miss him. You must remember that they are a shrewd lot."
"We've got to take our chances. Let's hope we are as shrewd as they are," replied Habersham.
They moved softly through the wood and presently the faint sound of singing reached them.
"Old Rabdick has finished his sermon and we'll know the worst in a few minutes."
One of the party had already detached himself and crept forward toward the church, to meet his appointed comrade in the enterprise, who was to come in from the other side.
The clapboard church presented in the moonlight the austerest outlines, and as the men waited, a rude though unseen hand was slamming the wooden shutters that protected the windows from impious violence.
"We could do with less moon," muttered Habersham, as he and Griswold peered through the trees into the churchyard.
"There goes Bill Appleweight now," whispered one of the natives at his elbow, and Griswold felt his heart-beats quicken as he watched a tall figure silhouetted against the church and moving swiftly toward the rear of the building. At the front of the church voices sounded, as the departing worshipers rode or drove slowly away.
Habersham laid his hand suddenly on Griswold's arm.
"They've got him! They've nailed him! See! There! They're yanking him back into the timber. They've taken him and his horse!"
Griswold saw nothing but a momentary confusion of shadows, then perfect silence hung over the woods behind the little church. The congregation was slowly dispersing, riding away in little groups. Suddenly a voice called out in the road a hundred yards beyond the church:
"Hey there! Where's Bill?"
"Oh, he's gone long ago!" yelled another.
In a moment more the church door slammed and a last figure rode rapidly away.
"Now we'll see what's happened," said Habersham. "It looks almost too easy."
The members of Griswold's party who had been thrown round to the farther side of the church began to appear, one at a time. There was no nervousness among any of the band—a fact that impressed Griswold. They were all risking much in this enterprise, but they were outwardly unperturbed, and chewing their tobacco silently while they awaited the return of the two active agents in the conspiracy who had dealt directly with Appleweight. Habersham counted heads, and announced all present or accounted for.
The tall leader who had ridden the mule was the first to rise out of the underbrush, through which he had crawled circuitously from the rear of the church. His companion followed a few seconds later.
"We've got Bill, all tied and gagged and a-settin' of his hoss," drawled the leader, "and the hoss is tied to the back fence. Rest o' his boys thought he'd gone ahead, but they may miss him and come back. He's safe enough, and ef we keep away from him we'll be ready to light out ef the gang scents trouble and comes back to look fer Bill."
"You're sure he's tied up so he can't break away or yell?"
"He's as good as dead, a-settin' of his hoss in the thicket back theh."
"And now," said Habersham, "what we've got to do is to make a run for it and land him across the border, and stick him into a North Carolina jail, where he rightfully belongs. The question is, can we do it all in one night, or had we better lock him up somewhere on this side the line and take another night for it? The sheriff over there in Kildare is Appleweight's cousin, but we'll lock him up with Bill, to make a family party of it."
"We'd better not try too much to-night," counseled Griswold. "It's a big thing to have the man himself. If it were not for the matter of putting Governor Dangerfield in a hole, I'd favor hurrying with Appleweight to Columbia, just for the moral effect of it on the people of South Carolina. We'd make a big killing for the administration that way, Habersham."
"Yes, you'd make a killing all right, but you'd have Bill Appleweight on your hands, which Governor Osborne has not until lately been anxious for," replied Habersham, in a low tone that was heard by no one but his old preceptor.
"You'd better get over the idea that we're afraid of this outlaw," rejoined Griswold. "The governor of North Carolina dare not call his soul his own where these hill people are concerned; but the governor of South Carolina is a different sort."
"The governor of North Carolina is filling the newspapers with his own virtuous intentions in the matter," remarked Habersham, "but his sudden zeal puts one upon inquiry."
"I hope you don't imply that the motives of the governor of South Carolina are not the worthiest?" demanded Griswold hotly.
"Most certainly not!" returned the prosecuting attorney; but a smile flitted across his face—a smile which, in the darkness, Griswold did not see. "The two governors are very different men—wholly antipodal characters, in fact," and again Habersham smiled to himself.
While they thus stood on South Carolina soil, waiting for the safe and complete dispersion of the Mount Nebo congregation before seizing the captive they had gagged and tied at the rear of the little church, the fates were ordering a very different termination of the night's business.
Miss Jerry Dangerfield, galloping away from the Duke of Ballywinkle, with no thought but to widen the distance between them, turned off at the first cross-road, which began well enough, but degenerated rapidly into a miserable trail, through which she was obliged to walk her horse. Before she was aware of it she was in the midst of a clearing where laborers had lately been cutting timber, and she found, on turning to make her way out, that she was quite lost, for three trails, all seemingly alike, struck off into the forest. She spoke aloud to the horse to reassure herself, and smiled as she viewed the grim phalanx of stumps. She must, however, find her way back to Ardsley, for there were times when Jerry Dangerfield could be very serious with herself, though it rarely pleased her to be serious with other people; and she knew that the time had long passed for her return to the house. If her conspiracy with Thomas Ardmore had proved successful, the duke would not return to the great house; but her own prolonged absence was something that had not been in her program.
She did not know then that three men had witnessed her flight from the duke, or that they had taken swift vengeance upon him for his unpardonable conduct in the moon-blanched road. It was not Jerry's way to accept misfortune tamely, and after circling the wall of timber that shut her in, in the hope of determining where she had entered, she chose a trail at random and plunged into the woods. She assumed that probably all the roads and paths on the estate led more or less directly to the great house or to some lodge or bungalow. She had lost her riding-crop in her mad flight, and she broke off a switch, tossing its leaves into the moonlight and laughing softly as they rained about her.
Jerry began whistling gently to herself, for she had never been lost before, and it is not so bad, when you have a good horse, a fair path, sweet odorous woods and the moon to keep you company. She forded a brook that was silver to eye and ear, and let her horse stand midway of it for joy in the sight and sound. She had kept no account of time, but rather imagined that it had not been more than half an hour since the Duke of Ballywinkle left her so unceremoniously.
Suddenly ahead of her through the woods floated the sound of singing—one of those strange, wavering pieux cantiques peculiar to the South. She rode on, thinking to find help and a guide back to Ardsley; then the music ceased, and lights now flashed faintly before her, but she went forward guardedly.
"I'm much more lost than I thought I was, for I must be away off the estate," she reflected. She turned and rode back a few rods and dismounted, and tied her horse to a sapling. She was disappointed at not finding a camp of Ardmore's wood-cutters, to whom she would unhesitatingly have confided herself; but it seemed wise now to exercise caution in drawing to herself the attention of strangers. She did not know that she had crossed the state line and was in South Carolina, or that the singing she had heard floated from the windows of Mount Nebo Church.
She became now the astonished witness of a series of incidents that occurred so swiftly as fairly to take her breath away. A tall, loosely articulated man came from the direction of the church and walked toward her. She knelt at the tree and watched, the moonlight giving her a clear view of a rustic somewhat past middle age, whose chief characteristics seemed to be a grizzled beard and long arms that swung oddly at his side. The brim of his wool hat was turned up sharply from his forehead, and she had a glimpse of the small, keen, gray eyes with which he swept the forest before him. He freed a horse which she had not before noticed, and she concluded that he would not approach nearer, for she expected him to mount and ride away to join others of the congregation whom she heard making off in a road beyond the church. Then, with a quickness and deftness that baffled her eyes, two men rose beside him just as he was about to mount; there was no outcry and no sound of scuffling, so quick was the descent and so perfect the understanding between the captors. In a moment the man was gathered up, bound, and flung on his saddle. She had a better view of him, now that he was hatless, though a gag had been forced into his mouth and a handkerchief tied over his eyes, so that he presented a grotesque appearance. Jerry was so absorbed that she forgot to be afraid; never in her life had she witnessed anything so amazing as this; and now, to her more complete bewilderment, the captors, after carefully inspecting their work and finding it satisfactory, seemed to disappear utterly from the face of the earth.
In the woods to her left she thought she heard a horse neigh; then she saw shadows moving in that direction; and again, from the road, she heard the brief debate of the two men as to the whereabouts of "Bill"; and it struck Jerry humorously that he would not soon see his friends unless they came and helped him out of his predicament.
It may help to an understanding of Miss Jerry Dangerfield's character if it is recorded here that never in her short life had she failed to respond to the call of impulse. She was lost in the woods, and strange men lurked about; a man had been attacked, seized, and left sitting in a state of absurd helplessness on a horse presumably his own, and there was no guessing what dire penalty his captors had in store for him. He certainly looked deliciously funny as he sat there in the shadows, vigorously twisting his arms and head in an effort to free himself.
Quiet reigned in the neighborhood of the church; the lights had blinked out; the bang of the closing shutters reassured Jerry, and she crept on her knees toward the unconscious captive, loosed his horse's rein and led it rapidly toward her own horse, a little farther back in the woods. Her blindfolded prisoner, thinking his original captors were carrying him off, renewed his efforts to free himself. He tested the ropes and straps with which he was fastened by throwing himself first to one side, then to the other, as far as his gyves would permit, at the same time frothily chewing his gag.
Jerry gained her own saddle in the least bit of a panic, and when she had mounted and made sure of the leading-strap with which her prisoner's horse was provided, she rode on at a rapid walk until she reached the clearing, where the stumps again grimly mocked her. She stopped to listen, and heard through the still night first one cry and then many voices in various keys of alarm and rage. Then she bent toward the prisoner, tore the bandage from his eyes, and with more difficulty freed him of the gag. He blinked and spluttered at this unexpected deliverance, then blinked and spluttered afresh at seeing that his captor was a young woman, who was plainly not of his world. Jerry watched him wonderingly, then addressed him in her most agreeable tone.
"You were caught and tied by two men over there by a church. I saw them, and when they went off and left you, I came along and brought you with me, thinking to save your life. I want to get home as quickly as possible, and though I do not know you, and am quite sure we never met before, I hope you will kindly guide me to Ardsley, and thereby render me a service I shall always deeply appreciate."
Mr. Bill Appleweight, alias Poteet, was well hardened to the shocks of time, but this pleasant-voiced girl, coolly sitting her horse, and holding his own lank steed by a strap, was the most amazing human being that had yet dawned on his horizon. He was not stupid, but Jerry's manner of speech had baffled more sophisticated minds than Appleweight's, and the sweet sincerity of her tone, and her frank countenance, hallowed as it was by the moonlight, wrought in the outlaw's mind a befuddlement not wholly unlike that which had possessed the wits of many young gallants south of the Potomac who had laid siege to Jerry Dangerfield's heart. But the cries behind them were more pronounced, and Appleweight was nothing if not a man of action.
"Take these things off'n me," he commanded fiercely, "and I'll see y' safe to Ardsley."
"Not in the least," replied Jerry, who was herself not unmindful of the voices behind. "You will kindly tell me the way, and I will accommodate my pace to that of your own somewhat ill-nourished beast. And as there's a mob looking for you back there, all ready to hang you to one of these noble forest trees, I advise you to use more haste and less caution in pointing the way."
Appleweight lifted his head and took his bearings. Then he nodded toward one of the three trails which had so baffled Jerry when first she broke into the clearing.
"Thet's the nighest," said Appleweight, "and we'd better git."
She set the pace at a trot, and was relieved in a few minutes to pass one or two landmarks which she remembered from her flight through the woods. As they splashed through the brook she had forded, she was quite confident that the captive was playing her no trick, but that in due course she should strike the highroad to Ardsley which she had abandoned to throw off the Duke of Ballywinkle.
It was now ten o'clock, and the moon was sinking behind the forest trees. Jerry took advantage of an occasional straight strip of road to go forward at a gallop, but these stretches did not offer frequently, and the two riders kept pretty steadily to a smart trot. They presented a droll picture as they moved through the forest—the girl, riding cross-saddle, with the stolen captive trailing after. Occasionally Mr. Appleweight seemed to be talking to himself, but whether he was praying or swearing Jerry did not trouble herself to decide. It was enough for her that she had found a guide out of the wilderness by stealing a prisoner from his enemies, and this was amusing, and sent bubbling in her heart those quiet springs of mirth that accounted for so much in Jerry Dangerfield.
As they walked their horses through a bit of sand, the prisoner spoke:
"Who air y'u, little gal?"
Jerry turned in the saddle, so that Appleweight enjoyed a full view of her face.
"I am perfectly willing to tell you my name, but first it would be more courteous for you to tell me yours, particularly as I am delivering you from a band of outlaws who undoubtedly intended to do you harm."
"I reckon they air skeered to foller us, gal. They air afeard to tackle th' ole man, onless they jump in two t' one; and they cain't tell who helped me git away."
He laughed—a curious, chuckling laugh. He had ceased to struggle at his bonds, but seemed resigned to his strange fate. He had not answered Jerry's question, and had no intention of doing so. The sudden attack at the church had aroused all his cunning. Appleweight, alias Poteet, was an old wolf, and knew well the ways of the trapper; but the bold attempt to kidnap him was a new feature of the game as heretofore played along the border. He did not make it out; nor was he wholly satisfied with the girl's explanation of her own presence in that out-of-the-way place. She might be a guest at Ardsley, as she pretended, but women folk were rarely seen on the estate, and never in such remote corners of it as Mount Nebo Church. As he pondered the matter, it seemed incredible that this remarkable young person, whose innocence was so beguiling, should be in any way leagued with his foes.
He had several times called out directions as they crossed other paths in the forest, and they now reached the main trunk road of the estate. The red bungalow, Jerry knew, was not far away. Her prisoner spoke again.
"Little gal, I'm an ole man, and I hain't never done y'u no harm. Your haouse is only a leetle way up thar, and I cain't be no more use to y'u. I want t' go home, and if y'u'll holp me ontie this yere harness—" and he grinned as he viewed his bonds in the fuller light of the open road.
Then hoof-beats thumped the soft earth of another of the trails that converged at this point, and Ardmore and Collins flashed out upon Jerry and her captive, amid a wild panic of horses.
Appleweight twisted and turned in his saddle but Jerry instantly held up her hand and arrested the inquiries of her deliverers.
"Mr. Ardmore, this gentleman was most rudely set upon by two strangers as he was leaving a church over there somewhere in the woods. I was lost, and as his appearance at the time and place seemed almost providential, I begged him to guide me toward home, which he has most courteously done," and Jerry, to give the proper touch to her explanation, twitched the strap by which she held her prisoner's horse, so that it danced, adding a fresh absurdity to the wobbling figure of its bound rider.
"You are safe!" cried Ardmore in a low tone, to which Jerry nodded carelessly, in a way that directed attention to the more immediate business at hand. He was not at once sure of his cue, but there seemed to be something familiar in the outlines of the man on horseback, and full identification broke upon him now with astounding vividness.
"Jugs," he began, addressing the prisoner smilingly, "dear old Jugs, to think we should meet again! Since you handed me that jug on the rear end of the train, a few nights ago, life has had new meanings for me, and I'm just as sorry as can be that I gave you the buttermilk. I wouldn't have done such a thing for billions in real money. And now that you have fallen into the excellent hands of Miss Dangerfield—"
"Dangerfield!" screamed the prisoner, lifting himself as high in the saddle as his bonds would permit.
"Certainly," replied Ardmore. "Your rescuer is none other than Miss Geraldine Dangerfield."
"Why, gal," began the outlaw, "ef your pa's the guv'nor of No'th Caroline, him an' me's old frien's."
"Then will you kindly tell me your name?" asked Jerry.
"Allow me to complete the introductions," interrupted Collins, who had hung back in silence. "Unless my eyes deceive me, which is wholly improbable, this is a gentleman whom I once interviewed in the county jail at Raleigh, and he was known at that time as William Appleweight, alias Poteet."
"You air right," admitted the prisoner without hesitation, and then, addressing Jerry: "Yer pa would be glad to know his dorter had helped an ole frien' like me, gal. Ye may hev heard him speak o' me."
"But how about that message in the cork of the jug you put on the train at Kildare?" demanded Ardmore. "And why did you send your brother to try to scare me to death at Raleigh?"
"That is not the slightest importance," interrupted Jerry, gently playing with the tether which held Mr. Appleweight; "nor does it matter that papa and this gentleman are friends. If this is, indeed, the famous outlaw, Mr. William Appleweight, then, papa or no papa, friend or no friend, he is a prisoner of the state of North Carolina."
"Pris'ner!" bawled Appleweight,—"an' you the guv'nor's gal—"
"You have hit the situation exactly, Mr. Appleweight; and as far as the office of governor is concerned, it is capably filled by the young gentleman on your left, Mr. Thomas Ardmore. Let us now adjourn to his house, where, if I am not mistaken, a bit of cold fowl is usually to be found on the sideboard at this hour. But hold"—and Jerry checked her horse—"where can we lodge this gentleman, Mr. Ardmore, until we decide upon his further fate?"
"We might put him in the wine cellar," suggested Ardmore.
"No," interposed Collins. "I fancy that much of your fluid stock has paid revenue tax, and most of it has passed none too lightly through the custom-house. It would be unwarrantably cruel to lock Mr. Appleweight in such quarters, with the visible marks of taxation all around him. Still, the sight of the stamps would probably destroy his thirst, though his rugged independence might so far assert itself that he would smash a few of your most expensive importations out of sheer deviltry."
"He shall be treated with the greatest consideration," said Jerry, and thereafter, no further adventure befalling them, they reached Ardsley, where their arrival occasioned the greatest excitement.
