As for escape, there was simply no chance—it
was impossible. On three sides the lake, still
beautiful, though the colour was fading from it, effectively
blocked their way. On the fourth and narrowest
side there was the shoulder of rocks, not only blocking
them, but affording a perfect shelter for Nash and
his men, for they did not doubt that it was he.
“They think they’ve got us,” said
a fiercely exultant voice beside him, “but we
ain’t started to make all the trouble we’re
goin’ to make.”
Life came back to him as he looked at her. She
was trembling with excitement, but it was the tremor
of eagerness, not the unmistakable sick palsy of fear.
He drew out a large handkerchief of fine, white linen
and tied it to a long splinter of wood which he tore
away from one of the rotten boards.
“Go out with this,” he said. “They
aren’t after you, Sally. This is west of
the Rockies, thank God, and a woman is safe with the
worst man that ever committed murder.”
She said: “D’you mean this, Anthony?”
“I’m trying to mean it.”
She snatched the stick and snapped it into small pieces.
“Does that look final, Anthony?”
He could not answer for a moment. At last he
said: “What a woman you would have made
for a wife, Sally Fortune; what a fine pal!”
But she laughed, a mirth not forced and harsh, but
clear and ringing.
“Anthony, ain’t this better’n marriage?”
“By God,” he answered, “I almost
think you’re right.”
For answer a bullet ripped through the right-hand
wall and buried itself in a beam on the opposite side
of the room.
“Listen!” she said.
There was a fresh crackle of guns, the reports louder
and longer drawn.
“Rifles,” said Sally Fortune. “I
knew no bullet from a six-gun could carry like that
one.”
The little, sharp sounds of splintering and crunching
began everywhere. A cloud of soot spilled down
the chimney and across the hearth. A furrow ploughed
across the floor, lifting a splinter as long and even
as if it had been grooved out by a machine.
“Look!” said Sally, “they’re
firin’ breast high to catch us standing, and
on the level of the floor to get us if we lie down.
That’s Nash. I know his trademark.”
“From the back of the house we can answer them,”
said Bard. “Let’s try it.”
“Pepper for their salt, eh?” answered
Sally, and they ran back through the old shack to
the last room.
LEGAL MURDER
As Drew entered his bedroom he found the doctor in
the act of restoring the thermometer to its case.
His coat was off and his sleeves rolled up to the
elbow; he looked more like a man preparing to chop
wood than a physician engaging in a struggle with
death; but Dr. Young had the fighting strain.
Otherwise he would never have persisted in Eldara.
