The Night Riders

  CHAPTER XVI.

  The lurking shadows along the stone wall suddenly grew into animatedforms, and the silence was broken by excited speech. The raiders fadedas quickly into the night as they had come, while the faint echoes ofretreating hoofs betokened a rapid flight of the band toward the hillcountry.

  "Have we bagged any game?"

  The guards hastily scrambled over the rock fence after a parting volleyhad been sent after the last retreating horseman, who had tarried abrief while in his retreat, and each guard was eager to find an answerto the leader's question.

  "One man fell or dropped from his horse, I'll swear to that," thesheriff made reply, looking along the gloom of the road with expectanteyes. "We must surely have wounded one of them. It cannot have been atotal loss of lead."

  "No, for I'm hit," a voice made the doleful assertion out of thedarkness farther along the fence line.

  "Hello! Scott! Is that you? Are you much hurt?"

  "Shot in the shoulder."

  "Is that so?" asked the sheriff concernedly. "I'll look after your caseat once. Anybody else hurt?"

  "I believe a bullet went through my hat and grazed my skull"--this asecond voice tinged with grave anxiety.

  "If so, it probably flattened the bullet," was the unfeeling remark of acompanion.

  The girl from the toll-house appeared just then on the platform--asudden apparition, startled of face, and with a hand that shookperceptibly as she carried an old tin lantern.

  "Is anybody hurt?" she anxiously inquired.

  "A wound in the shoulder of one of our men; nothing serious, I hope,"and the sheriff came forward to reassure her.

  "And the raiders--what of them?" The girl's query was hastily made.

  "One fell from his horse, but we can find no trace of him. He seems tohave escaped. Lend us your lantern," the sheriff added; "perhaps hecrawled off into the weeds."

  "Here's a hat I found in the road!" The words came from an excitedguard.

  "Fetch it to the light!" This from the sheriff.

  The guard obeyed. As the hat was held close to the light of the lantern,which the girl held obligingly over the rail, the men crowded around,eager to examine the one trophy of battle.

  "There's blood on it!" some voice exclaimed. "We must have wounded oneof the rascals at least. Likely he's in hiding now, close by."

  "Lend us your lantern, Miss Sally."

  The sheriff reached out for it, but before his fingers closed over thehandle, the girl's nervous hand suddenly relaxed its hold, and thelantern fell to the hard bed of the pike. The glass in the sidesshivered as it struck, while the candle rolled out and was quicklyextinguished in the white dust of the road. The girl became the pictureof consternation.

  "Oh!" she cried, "just see what I have done!"

  "Perhaps it's the sight of blood. It makes some folks grow faint."

  The sheriff spoke consolingly, pitying the girl's embarrassment, andcovertly regretting the accident.

  "I'm all upset!" acknowledged the pretty toll-taker frankly. She lookedit, seemingly so innocent the while, one would scarcely have suspectedthe accident to have been hastily planned by woman's nimble wit, inorder to gain yet more time before a further search could be made forthe wounded man.

  When the hat was held up to the light, the girl recognized it almostinstantly as one Milton Derr was in the habit of wearing. He had worn itthat very day when he passed through the New Pike gate. Its recentdiscovery by the guard, and the fresh stains of blood upon it, nowfilled her with sudden terror and consternation.

  Was Milton Derr among the raiders? The hat was a silent witness to thefact. Had her lover been wounded? The blood stains gave conclusiveevidence. Was it possible that Milt had ventured back with the raidersin the very face of the warning Sally had given him? Why had he riskedso much? Ah! was it for her sake? She asked herself this with a suddenglow in her heart, set aflame by her lover's devotion, and a quickresolve was formed to aid him in his present strait.

  Many perplexing thoughts arose. Why had he not in turn warned theraiders as she had expected him to do? Perhaps he had done so, butwithout avail. Could they have ignored the warning, or have forced himto come back with them? Possibly he came of his own accord to be ofwhatever assistance he could in the face of danger that threatened theinmates of the toll-house. The girl was in a sea of grave perplexitiesand conflicting thoughts.

  The voice of the sheriff close at hand broke into her bewildered trainof thought and recalled her abruptly to a sense of her surroundings.

  "Miss Sally! I have stepped on the piece of candle and broken it. Canyou get me another?"

  "Yes, certainly; I'll go at once," she answered hurriedly, glad toescape into the toll-house, where her mother was busied hunting bandageswith which to dress the arm of the wounded man.

  "It seemed as if I'd never be able to find another piece of candle,"said the girl in apology when she finally came out after quite a littlesearch. "My wits have left me completely--I'm dazed."

  "Hadn't you better leave the hat with me?" she asked with affectedindifference as the sheriff and his posse started off with the light tolook for the wounded raider along the road.

  "I might as well do so;" then, as he was about to comply, the sheriffadded on second thought, "no, I'll take it along to shield the candlefrom the wind, now that the lantern glass is broken."

  At the spot where the hat had been picked up the searchers found somedark splotches sprinkling the dust of the pike, as if blood had fallenthere, but the owner of the lost hat was nowhere to be found. The mensearched carefully some distance along the way, and closely examined thepatches of dusty weeds in the fence corners, but without reward.

  "I am positive one of the raiders carried him off," insisted the guard.

  "But for Gregory getting excited and firing before the raiders hadgotten in close range, we would certainly have killed or captured someof them, perhaps have bagged the whole band by closing in upon them fromeach end of the road. This comes of having green recruits," the sheriffadded grimly.

  When the posse had gone with the lantern, Sally went once more into thehouse and began to assist her mother in caring for the wounded guard,but the girl's thoughts were far from being centered on the object ofher present skill and care, and she listened momentarily and withgrowing anxiety for additional news concerning the owner of the losthat.

  Could it be that it was not Milton's, after all? She felt almostpositive that she had made no mistake in regard to its ownership, andshe had suggested the leaving of the hat with her that she might give ita closer scrutiny and satisfy herself on this point.

  If the hat were really Milton Derr's, on the under lining, inside theband, was his name and hers, both done in red ink, along with anarrow-pierced heart, and the date on which the names had beenwritten--September 10th.

  There had been a little picnic on this date. She and Milton, along withSophronia and her beau, and a few others, had gone for an outing up inthe hills. The usual rain that invariably and maliciously awaits suchgatherings suddenly came up, and the party had taken shelter for a timein the old schoolhouse in Alder Creek glen--the very log building whereSally's first girlish fancy had been captured by Milt's dark eyes andruddy face. Here, as a stripling, he had fought battles for his ladylove, and Jade Beddow had sought in vain to supplant him in heraffections.

  While the picnic party had waited for the rain to abate, Milt hadusurped one of the children's desks, and written the two names on theinner lining of his hat-band, covertly showing the results of his skillto Sally.

  If these names should be discovered, and discovery was imminent, itwould clearly fasten the ownership of the hat on Milton Derr, even if noone could identify it otherwise. She felt a growing eagerness to getpossession of the hat, and tear out the tell-tale lining, yet she darednot betray her anxiety, lest it arouse suspicion and hasten thediscovery she would gladly avert.

  In the midst of her uncertainties and fears she caught sound of SquireBixler's voice outside the to
ll-house.

  He had hurriedly put on his shoes and great coat, and ridden over to thegate to learn the results of the fight between raiders and guards,prudently waiting, however, until the firing had ceased; and he hadheard, with deep disappointment and regret, the retreating hoof-beats ofhorses galloping toward the hills. Despite the sound, he hoped that oneraider at least had been left behind.

  The Squire's chagrin was poignant when he learned that not a singlemember of the band had been either killed or captured, and that the solespoil of battle, on which he had so largely counted, was but a gray felthat, streaked with blood, that had been picked up in the middle of thedusty road.

  "By heaven!" cried the Squire wrathfully, when this single trophy wasshown him, "I'll find the owner of that hat and punish him, if it takesevery detective in the state to help me to do it."