Chapter XL. The Failure
When Black Bart returned without Joan, without even a note of answerabout his neck, the master made ready to take by force. First he wentover his new outfit of saddle and guns, looking to every strap of theformer, and the latter, revolvers and rifle, he weighed and balancedwith a meditative look, as if he were memorizing their qualities againsta time of need. With Satan saddled and Bart on guard at the mouth of thecave, he gathered up all the accumulation of odds and ends, provisions,skins, and made a stirring bonfire in the middle of the gravel floor.It was like burning his bridges before starting out to the battle; heturned his back to the cave and started on his journey.
He had to travel in a loose semicircle, for there were two points whichhe must reach on the ride, the town of Alder, where lived the seventhman who must die for Grey Molly, and the Cumberland ranch, last of all,where he would take Joan. Very early after his start he reached theplateau where he had lived all those years with Kate, and he found italready sinking back to ruin, with nothing in the corrals, and the frontdoor swinging to and fro idly in the wind, just as Joan had often playedwith it. Inside, he knew, the rooms were empty; a current of air downthe chimney had scattered the ashes from the hearth all about the livingroom. Here must be a chair overturned, and there the sand had driftedthrough the open door. All this he saw clearly enough with his mind'seye, and urged Satan forward. For a chill like the falling of suddennight had swept over him, and he shrugged his shoulders with relief whenhe swept past the house. Yet when he came to the long down-slope whichpitched into the valley so far below him, he called Satan to a haltagain, and swung to look at the house. He could hear the clatter of thefront door as it swung; it seemed to be waving a farewell to him.
It was all the work of a moment, to ride back, gather a quantity ofpaper and readily inflammable materials, soak them in oil, and scratcha match. The flames swept up the sides of the logs and caught on theceiling first of all, and Dan Barry stood in the center of the roomuntil the terrified whining of Black Bart and the teeth of the wolf-dogat his trousers made him turn and leave the house. Outside, he foundSatan trembling between two temptations, the first to run as far and asfast as he could from that most terrible thing--fire; and the second togallop straight into the blaze. The voice of the master, a touch quietedhim, and Black Bart lay down at the feet of the master and looked upinto his face.
By this time the fire had licked away a passage through the roof andthrough this it sent up a yellow hand that flicked up and down likea signal, or a beckoning, and then shot up a tall, steady, growing,roaring column of red. No man could say what went through the mind ofDan Barry as he stood there watching the house of his building burn, butnow he turned and threw his arms over the neck and back of Satan, anddropped his forehead against the withers of the black. It troubledthe stallion. He turned his head, and nosed the shoulder of the mastergently, and Black Bart, in an agony of anxiety, reared up beside Danand brought his head almost up to the head of the man; there he whinedpleadingly for never before had he seen the master hide his face.
A deep, short report made the master stand away from Satan. The firehad reached a small stock of powder, and the shock of the explosion wasfollowed by a great crashing and rending as an inner wall went down.That fall washed a solid mass of yellow flame across the front door, butthe fire fell back, and then Dan saw the doll which he himself had madefor Joan; it had been thrown by the smashing of the wall squarely infront of the door, and now the fire reached after it--long arms acrossthe floor. It was an odd contrivance, singularly made of carved woodand with arms and legs fastened on by means of bits of strong sinew, andJoan prized it above all the rosy faced dolls which Kate had bought forher. For an instant Dan stood watching the progress of the fire, then heleaped through the door, swerved back as an arm of fire shot out at him,ran forward again, caught up the doll and was outside rubbing away thesinged portions of brows and lashes.
He did not wait until the house was consumed, but when the flames stoodtowering above the roof, shaking out to one side with a roar when thewind struck them, he mounted Satan once more, and made for the valley.
He wanted to reach Alder at dark, and he gauged the time of his ride soaccurately that when he pulled out of the mouth of Murphy's Pass, thelast light of the day was still on the mountains and in the pass, butit was already dark in the village, and a score of lights twinkled up athim like eyes.
He left Satan and Bart well outside the town, for even in the dark theymight easily be recognized, and then walked straight down the street ofAlder. It was a bold thing to do, but he knew that the first thingwhich is seen and suspected is the skulker who approaches from covert tocovert. They knew he had ridden into Alder before in the middle of thenight and they might suspect the danger of such another attack, but theysurely would not have fear of a solitary pedestrian unless a telltalelight were thrown upon his face.
He passed Captain Lorrimer's saloon. Even in this short interval it hadfallen into ill-repute after the killing at Alder. And a shanty fartherdown the street now did the liquor business of the town; CaptainLorrimer's was closed, and the window nailed across with slats. He wenton. Partly by instinct, and partly because it was aflame with lights, hemoved straight to the house at which he had learned tidings of three menhe sought on his last visit to Alder. Now there were more lights showingfrom the windows of that place than there were in all the rest of Alder;at the hitching racks in front, horses stood tethered in long doublerows, and a noise of voices rolled out and up and down the street.Undoubtedly, there was a festival there, and all Alder would turn out tosuch an affair. All Alder, including Vic Gregg, the seventh man. Agroup came down the street for the widow's house; they were laughing andshouting, and they carried lanterns; away from them Barry slipped like aghost and stood in the shadow of the house.
There might be other such crowds, and they were dangerous to Barry,so now he hunted for a means of breaking into the house of the widowunseen. The windows, as he went down the side of the building, he notedto be high, but not too high to be reached by a skillful, noiselessclimber. In the back of the house he saw the kitchen door, illuminedindeed, but the room, as far as he could see, empty.
Then very suddenly a wave of silence began somewhere in a side of thehouse and swept across it, dying to a murmur at the edges. Barry waitedfor no more maneuvers, but walked boldly up the back stairs and enteredthe house, hat in hand.
The moment he passed the door he was alert, balanced. He could haveswung to either side, or whirled and shot behind him with the precisionof a leisurely marksman, and as he walked he smiled, happily with hishead held high. He seemed so young, then, that one would have said hehad just come in gaily from some game with the other youths of Alder.
Out of the kitchen he passed into the hall, and there he understood themeaning of the silence, for both the doors to the front room were open,and through the doors he heard a single voice, deep and solemn, andthrough the doors he saw the crowd standing motionless. Their heads didnot stir,--heads on which the hair was plastered smoothly down--and whensome one raised a hand to touch an itching ear, or nose, he moved hisarm with such caution that it seemed he feared to set a magazine ofpowder on fire. All their backs were towards Barry, where he stood inthe hall, and as he glided toward them, he heard the deep voice stop,and then the trembling voice of a girl speak in reply.
At the first entrance he paused, for the whole scene unrolled beforehim. It was a wedding. Just in front of him, on chairs and even onbenches, sat the majority of adult Alder,--facing these stood thewedding pair with the minister just in front of them. He could see thegirl to one side of the minister's back, and she was very pretty, veryfemininely appealing, now, in a dress which was a cloudy effect ofwhite; but Barry gave her only one sharp glance. His attention was forthe men of the crowd. And although there were only backs of heads, andside glimpses of faces he hunted swiftly for Vic Gregg.
But Gregg was not there. He surveyed the assembly twice, incredulous,for surely t
he tall man should be here, but when he was on the verypoint of turning on his heel and slinking down the hall to pursue hishunt in other quarters, the voice of the minister stopped, and the deeptone of Vic himself rolled through the room.
It startled Barry like a voice out of the sky; he stared about,bewildered, and then as the minister shifted his position a little hesaw that it was Gregg who stood there beside the girl in white,--it wasGregg being married. And at the same moment, the eyes of Vic lifted,wandered, fell upon the face which stood there framed in the dark of thedoorway. Dan saw the flush die out, saw the narrow, single-purposed faceof Gregg turn white, saw his eyes widen, and his own hand closed onhis gun. Another instant; the minister turned his head, seemed to bewaiting, and then Gregg spoke in answer: "I will!"
A thousand pictures rushed through the mind of Barry, and he rememberedfirst and last the wounded man on the gray horse who he had saved,and the long, hard ride carrying that limp body to the cabin in themountains. The man would fight. By the motion of Gregg's hand, Dan knewthat he had gone even to his wedding armed. He had only to show his owngun to bring on the crisis, and in the meantime the eyes of Vic heldsteadily upon him past the shoulder of the minister, without fear,desperately. In spite of himself Dan's hand could not move his gun. Inspite of himself he looked to the confused happy face of the girl. Andhe felt as he had felt when he set fire to his house up there in thehills. The wavering lasted only a moment longer; then he turned andslipped noiselessly down the hall, and the seventh man who should havedied for Grey Molly was still alive.