Blindfolded by Earle Ashley Walcott (best affordable ebook reader TXT) 📖

plans of the Unknown come to disaster through the difficulty of getting the telegraph on Sunday? The office here was closed. The Unknown, being a woman, I ungallantly reflected, would have neglected to take so small a circumstance into consideration, and she might even now be besieging the telegraph office in San Francisco in a vain effort to get word to Livermore.

On this thought I bestirred myself, and after much trouble had speech with the young man who combined in his person the offices of telegraph operator, station master, ticket seller, freight agent and baggage handler for the place. He objected to opening the office "out of office hours."

"There might be inducements discovered that would make it worth your while, I suppose?" I said, jingling some silver carelessly in my pocket.

He smiled.

"Well, I don't care if I do," he replied. "Whatever you think is fair, of course."

It was more than I thought fair, but the agent thawed into friendship at once, and expressed his readiness to "call San Francisco" till he got an answer if it took till dark.

I might have saved my trouble and my coin. San Francisco replied with some emphasis that there was nothing for me, and never had been, and who was I, anyhow?

There was nothing to be done. I must possess my soul in patience in the belief that the Unknown knew what she was about and that I should get my orders in due time--probably after nightfall, when darkness would cover any necessary movement.

But if I could shift the worry and responsibility of the present situation on the Unknown, there was another trouble that loomed larger and more perplexing before my mind with each passing hour. If the mission of to-day were prolonged into the morrow, what was to become of the Omega deal, and where would Doddridge Knapp's plans of fortune be found? I smiled to think that I should concern myself with this question when I knew that Doddridge Knapp's men were waiting and watching for my first movement with orders that probably did not stop at murder itself. Yet my trouble of mind increased with the passing time as I vainly endeavored to devise some plan to meet the difficulty that had been made for me.

But as I saw no way to straighten out this tangle, I turned my attention to the boy in the hope of getting from him some information that might throw light on the situation.

"He's as shy as a young quail," said Wainwright, when my advances were received in stubborn silence.

"You seem to be getting along pretty well with him," I suggested.

"Yes, sir; he'll talk a bit with me, but he's as close-mouthed a chap as you'll find in the state, sir, unless it's one of them deef and dummies."

I made another unsuccessful attempt to cultivate the acquaintance of my charge.

"You've got a day's job before you if you get him to open his head," said Wainwright, amused at the failure of my efforts as an infant- charmer.

"What has he been talking about?" I inquired, somewhat disgusted.

"The train," chuckled Wainwright. "Blamed if I think he's seen anything else since he started."

"The train?"

"Yes; the one we come on. He's been talking about it, and wondering what I'd do with it and without it till I reckon we've covered pretty near everything that could happen to a fellow with a train or without one."

"Is that the only subject of interest?"

"Well, he did go so far as to say that the milk was different here, and that he wanted a kind of cake we didn't get at dinner."

I attacked the young man on his weak point, and got some brief answers in reply to my remarks on the attractiveness of locomotives and the virtues of cars. But as any venture away from the important subject was met with the silence of the clam, I had at last to give up with a wild desire to shake the young man until some more satisfactory idea should come uppermost.

As darkness came on, the apprehensions of danger which had made no impression on me by daylight, began to settle strongly on my spirits. The wind that dashed the rain-drops in gusts on the panes seemed to whistle a warning, and the splash of the water outside was as the muttering of a tale of melancholy in an unknown tongue.

I concealed my fears and depressions from the men, and with the lighting of the lamps made my dispositions to meet any attack that might come. I had satisfied myself that the rear bedroom, that faced the south, could not be entered from the outside without the aid of ladders. The parlor showed a sheer drop to the street on the west, and I felt assured we were safe on that side. But the front windows of the parlor, and the front bedroom which joined it, opened on the veranda roof in common with a dozen other rooms. Inside, the hallway, perhaps eight feet wide and twenty-five feet long, offered the only approach to our rooms from the stairs. The situation was not good for defense, and at the thought I had a mind even then to seek other quarters.

It was too late for such a move, however, and I decided to make the best of the position. I placed the boy in the south bedroom, which could be reached only through the parlor. With him I placed Wainwright and Fitzhugh, the two strongest men of the party. The north bedroom, opening on the hallway, the veranda roof and the parlor, looked to be the weakest part of my position, but I thought it might be used to advantage as a post of observation. The windows were guarded with shutters of no great strength. We closed and secured those of the parlor and the inner bedroom as well as possible. Those of the north bedroom I left open. By leaving the room dark it would be easy for a sentinel to get warning of an assault by way of the veranda roof. I stationed Porter in the hall, and Abrams in the dark bedroom, while Lockhart, Wilson, Brown and I held the parlor and made ourselves comfortable until the time should come to relieve the men on guard.

One by one the lights that could be seen here and there through the town disappeared, the sounds from the streets and the other parts of the house came more infrequently and at last were smothered in silence, and only darkness and the storm remained.

I thrust open the door to the bedroom to see that the boy and his guards were safe, and this done I turned down the light, threw myself on the floor before the door that protected my charge, and mused over the strange events that had crowded so swiftly upon me.

Subtle warnings of danger floated over my senses between sleeping and waking, and each time I dropped into a doze I awoke with a start, to see only the dimly-lighted forms of my men before me, and to hear only the sweep and whistle of the wind outside and the dash of water against the shutters. Thrice I had been aroused thus, when, on the borderland between dreams and waking, a voice reached my ear.

"S-s-t! What was that?"

I sprang up, wide-awake, revolver in hand. It was Lockhart who spoke. We all strained our ears to listen. There was nothing to be heard but the moan of the wind and the dash of water.

"What was it?" I whispered.

"I don't know."

"I heard nothing."

"It was a coo-hoo--like the call of an owl, but--"

"But you thought it was a man?" Lockhart nodded. Brown and Wilson had not heard it.

"Was it inside or outside?"

"It was out here, I thought," said Lockhart doubtfully, pointing to the street that ran by the side of the hotel.

I opened the door to the dark bedroom in which Abrams kept watch. It swung noiselessly to my cautious touch. For a moment I could see nothing of my henchman, but the window was open. Then, in the obscurity, I thought I discovered his body lying half-way across the window-sill. I waited for him to finish his observations on the weather, but as he made no move I was struck with the fear that he had met foul play and touched him lightly.

In a flash he had turned on me, and I felt the muzzle of a revolver pressing against my side.

"If you wouldn't mind turning that gun the other way, it would suit me just as well," I said.

"Oh, it's you, is it?" said Abrams with a gulp. "I thought Darby Meeker and his gang was at my back, sure."

"Did you hear anything?" I asked.

"Yes; there was a call out here a bit ago. And there's half a dozen men or more out there now--right at the corner."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes; I was a-listening to 'em when you give me such a start."

"What were they saying?"

"I couldn't hear a word."

"Give warning at the first move to get into the house. Blaze away with your gun if anybody tries to climb on to the porch."

Porter had heard nothing, but was wide awake, watching by the light of the lamp that hung at the head of the stairway. And after a caution to vigilance I returned to my chair.

For half an hour I listened closely. The men were open-eyed but silent. The storm kept up its mournful murmur, but no sound that I could attribute to man came to my straining ears.

Suddenly there was a cry from the hall.

"Who's there?" It was Porter's voice.

An instant later there was a crash of glass, an explosion seemed to shake the house, and there was a rush of many feet.

I leaped to the door and flung it open, Lockhart, Wilson and Brown crowding close behind me. A body of men filled the hallway, and Porter was struggling in the hands of three ruffians. His revolver, whose shot we had heard, had been knocked from his hand and lay on the floor.

The sudden appearance of four more weapons in the open doorway startled the enemy into pausing for a moment. I sprang forward and gave the nearest of Porter's assailants a blow that sent him staggering into the midst of his band, and with a wrench Porter tore himself loose from the other two and was with us again.

"What does this mean?" I cried angrily to the invaders. "What are you here for?"

There were perhaps a dozen of them altogether, and in the midst of the band I saw the evil face and snake-eyes of Tom Terrill. At the sight of his repulsive features I could scarce refrain from sending a bullet in his direction.

Darby Meeker growled an answer.

"You know what we're here for."

"You have broken into a respectable house like a band of robbers," I cried. "What do you want?"

"You know what we want, Mr. Wilton," was the surly answer. "Give us the boy and we won't touch you."

"And if not?"

There was silence for a few moments.

"What are you waiting for?" growled a voice from beyond the turn of the hall.

At the sound I thrilled to the inmost fiber. Was it not the growl of the Wolf? Could I be mistaken in those