CHAPTER XX.
The two girls clung closely to one another, after the manner offrightened womankind, striving vainly to abstract a grain of couragefrom a united fear--in the eyes of each a growing terror.
"We must find Milt and give him warning!" gasped Sally faintly to hercompanion, at last gaining courage and voice as the two men went slowlydown the ravine, their voices dropping lower and lower until they grewbut a dull, unintelligible murmur to the attentive ears bent keenly tocatch their meaning.
"Yes," agreed Sophronia, "without delay. Is Steve Judson the man youoverheard talking to the Squire?"
"The very one. I recollected his voice the minute he begun to speak."
"A pretty pair of villains they are,--him an' Jade, too!"
Sally was already busied with her plans for her sweetheart's safety."I'll try to beat 'em at their very own game," she said determinedly."The first thing to be done is to see Milt."
"Yes, we must find him at once," agreed her companion.
"Let's go straight home, get our horses, and ride over to Mr. Pepper'swhere Milt works. We must see Milt himself, not trust to a message."
"He can't be badly wounded, else they wouldn't expect to try himtonight," said Sally thoughtfully, hope springing anew in her breast.
"Neither Jade, nor Steve talked like he was hurt at all. Perhaps heisn't."
As the girls talked and planned, beset by many fears and uncertainties,they walked hurriedly across the fields, keeping pace with their nimbletongues, and when Mr. Saunders' house was reached, they quickly saddledthe horses, and set out forthwith on their quest.
Disappointment awaited them at their journey's end, for when they cameto Mr. Pepper's place, they learned that Milt had gone across country toattend to some business for his employer, and it was uncertain at whathour he would return. Sophronia and Sally looked at one another in direperplexity.
"Want to leave a message?" asked Mr. Pepper.
"If Mr. Derr comes any hour before midnight, tell him to ride over to myhouse," said Sophronia. "I have a very important message for him." Theyturned away. "He evidently isn't wounded, an' likely he won't get backin time to be summoned by the raiders," she added hopefully, as she andher companion rode homeward. "Now, what's to be done in the meantime?"
"I'm goin' straight home," declared Sally, "an' keep a sharp look-out atthe gate. Mr. Pepper said Milt might come back by way of town. I cantrump up some excuse to mother about not staying all night with you, asI intended. If Milt comes back to Mr. Pepper's you'll get to see an'warn him, an' if he comes by the gate--I'll get to do it. That's all wecan do."
"Suppose we both fail?"
"Then I'll go to the old quarry tonight," answered Sally.
"No!" cried her companion aghast.
"Indeed, I will," insisted Sally, coolly, "I'll not only go, but I'llsee that Milt's not convicted on the false words of those two lyingvillains."
"You're really not in earnest, Sally Brown!" cried Sophronia, half inastonishment, half in admiration at the daring announcement.
"But I am, I mean every word of it." The girl had inherited from herforbears a touch of that intrepid spirit that prevailed amid the hills.
"I wouldn't go for worlds!" cried Sophronia shuddering.
"I guess you would, if it was _your_ sweetheart that was in danger."
"I don't believe I could go, even then," admitted Sophronia. "They'llkill you!" she declared in growing terror.
"Not when I tell them I sent a warning to the band by Milt, and pointout the very man that did betray them."
"But remember, the leader of the night-raiders is Jade Beddow. He willsurely do you an' Milt all the injury he can. Oh, Sally, don't thinkof running such a risk! Let's find Billy West an' ask him to go."
"YOU'RE REALLY NOT IN EARNEST, SALLY BROWN!"]
"It wouldn't be as safe as for me to go," demurred Sally. "I'm notafraid. They're not goin' to hurt me. Let me have your father's pistolwhen we get back. I'll take it along, an' use it, too, if there's need."
As the two girls excitedly discussed the situation, Sally decided thatshe would not go back home as she had first intended. There were toomany chances of missing her sweetheart by so doing. Besides, if the twogirls separated, Sally would not know whether her friend had seen Miltor not. This was a point they had both overlooked.
It was agreed, then, that the safer plan would be for Sally to remain atMr. Saunders' until late bedtime, then, if Milt had not come, she wouldmanage, with Sophronia's help, to slip quietly out of the house, saddleJoe and go direct to the old abandoned quarry where the farce of a trialwould be held.
When bedtime came, and no sign of Derr, the two girls succeeded inslipping out of the house without detection, when they quickly saddledthe patient Joe, and later parted in the darkness, Sophronia stillurging her companion to think once again before starting forth on soperilous a journey.
Unshaken by her friend's forebodings, the toll-taker set outcourageously into the lonely night, bent on accomplishing hersweetheart's release. She was familiar with the location of the dirtlane, at which she must turn off in order to reach the quarry, yet, inthe haste of her mission and the perturbation of mind under which shewas laboring, she turned into the wrong lane, and had gone some distancebefore discovering her mistake. By the time she had retraced her waymany valuable moments were lost.
The night was wearing on. In the hilly and sparsely settled regionthrough which she rode, it seemed already past midnight, and her roadwas solitary and forbidding. Even the rocks, and trees and clumps ofbushes along the way took on grotesque and often threatening shapes toher excited imagination as she passed them in the semi-darkness.
At times, these dimly defined forms became terrifying monsters of thenight, guarding the road along which she passed, like fabulouscreatures of fairy-land protecting the approach to some magic domain.Vague, silent, mysterious, they loomed up on either hand--gigantic,somber sentinels.
The chill of the night air, which lay heavily in the shadowy ravines,between the uplifting hills, penetrated her clothing and seemed to reachwith its benumbing breath her very heart, yet she pressed on, undaunted.
She paused a brief moment at a small brook that crossed the road on theway to the quarry, and as she listened there came the dull hoof-tread ofapproaching horses--a cavalcade, it seemed, as she hearkened in suddennervous terror, for the raiders were evidently close at hand.
Were they coming from, or going to the quarry?
For the moment she could not decide whether the sound was behind or infront of her. The reverberant hills seemed to be playing pranks with theechoes, and as she sat motionless on her horse and listened, a feelingof faintness came over her at the possibility of the sound's direction.
What if she were too late, and the raiders, returning from the oldquarry, had already wreaked their vengeance on the hapless victim? Thethought appalled her in its cruel suggestion, and her heart grew heavywith forebodings; then close upon her terror and despair the glad factrushed to her relief that the horsemen were behind, not in front of her,and there was yet time in which to state her lover's case.
The raiders' rendezvous lay beyond, some little distance up the road, asshe remembered its location in bygone days. There was scarcely time toreach it before the hurrying horses. Perhaps it would be the better planto conceal herself somewhere amid the shadows along the road until thecavalcade had passed, then quickly follow.
She recalled to mind that a little further down the brook was a thicketof water willows, now a splotch of blackness in the vague landscape,and, after a moment's hesitation, she turned her horse's head in thisdirection.
Scarcely had the obscurity of the spot enfolded her, when the raiderscame sweeping by--an ominous shadowy band, crossing the shallow streamat the place she had but recently quitted, then galloping rapidly alongthe road which rose sharply toward the hill where lay the place ofmeeting.
The quarry was hollowed out of the far side of the hill, around whosebase the stream wo
und lazily, and to go by way of the winding road was amore circuitous route, while to climb the hill shortened the distancegreatly.
The girl decided on this latter route--she would climb the hill on foot.It would take less time, and time was now most precious. Possibly theraiders would place a sentry at the entrance of the quarry, so that shemight not be able to gain access, even if she should go around by theroad as she had at first intended.
Acting on this sudden decision, she quietly slipped from the saddle tothe ground, hurriedly tied the bridle to a bending willow, and, aftergiving Joe a friendly, reassuring pat, started to climb the hill.
The way was rough and unfamiliar, and in the darkness, made yet moredense by clumps of cedar trees and bushes that thickly clothed thehillside, she was often compelled to grope her way along to keep fromstumbling over the knotted roots of the trees that crept out frombetween crevices in the rocks, twisting over the ground like monster,hideous serpents, guarding the approach to the rendezvous.
The ascent was slow and tedious. Finally the summit was reached, andchoosing her bearings from its commanding height, she began to descendthe opposite side toward the quarry, the long accumulation of fallencedar spines deadening the sound of her light footstep until she wasable to reach the very edge of the excavated portion of the hill withoutdetection, guided thither by a dim light below the surface that faintlydefined its rugged outline.
Spent of breath, she crouched down in the shadows behind a clump ofdwarfed cedar bushes fringing the ragged edge of broken rock, and peeredcautiously into the quarry.
A scant fire had been hastily kindled close against the rocky wall, andin a semi-circle around it the raiders were now gathered. Thewide-brimmed, slouch hats they wore partly concealed the faces beneath,and the girl's eager eyes traveled anxiously from one dark form toanother.
Finally they rested on the object sought. Standing almost beneath thespot where she crouched in hiding was the accused, his head boldlyerect, his bearing defiant, as if he feared no man, and cared naught forthe two who had come to bear false witness against him, and to swearaway his life.