LITMIR.BIZ

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surrounded him. The air was warmer, less fresh, drier. But more than all these things, it was filled with the personality, so to speak, of human beings. The darkness had a quality not unlike that of a human face. It watched Ronicky Doone; it listened to him as he crouched by the wall and waited and listened.

      For now, no matter how innocent his errand, the people of the house, if indeed there were more than the girl present, would be amply justified in treating as a criminal a man who had forced his way into their home. If he were shot on sight the law would not by the weight of a single finger attempt to punish the slayers. And still he persisted in the adventure.

      Eventually, by whatever uneasy light filtered from the night and through the window, he made out that the room in which he stood was utterly bare of furniture of any kind. It was deserted. By the soft feel of dust beneath his shoe he shrewdly guessed that it had been deserted a matter of many years, and when he tried the boards with his weight his conjecture was further reinforced by the whisper which replied, and which would have grown into a prodigious squeak had he allowed his whole weight to fall.

      This particular made his exit from the room a delicate matter. He managed it without noise only by staying close to the edge of the wall, where the flooring, being here firmly attached, could not possibly have any great play. Facing out to the center of the room, since in this manner he could slide closest to the wall, he managed to get to the hall door of the room and thence into the hall without making a whisper loud enough to have caught the attentive ear of a cat.

      Once there he paused again, swaying a little, so lightly was he poised, with the rhythm of his breathing. The house below was still as the grave, but presently it was filled with murmurs. For the wind had freshened and was now striking the house with a renewed vigor. His thought flashed back to Lou, standing patiently in the shelter of the pines, and then he turned again to the work before him.

      It was peculiarly embarrassing. He could not simply stand in the hall and shout his good intentions and his warnings. That would be sheer madness. There remained nothing but to hunt through the house and hope to find Hugh Dawn, surprise him, perhaps cover him with a gun, and then deliver his tidings at its point. For otherwise Hugh Dawn, no doubt in terrible fear of his old band, would shoot the first stranger on sight.

      Ronicky began to slip down the hall. The noise of the wind, starting a thousand creaks in the house, favored his progress immensely. It covered other footfalls, to be sure, but it also covered his own. In order that the noise he made might be completely blanketed by the shakings of the wind, he waited for flurries of the storm and took advantage of them to make swift progress forward, then paused through the intervals of comparative silence.

      So he rumbled down the upper hall balustrade until it swerved to the right and down, leading him onto the stairs. In this way he came down to the second story, where, he was sure, he had first heard the footfalls. It was in utter darkness. Yet by striving continually to pierce the wall of shadow he had so far accustomed his eyes to the strain that he could make out the vague proportions of that wide and lofty hall.

      Where the stairs turned easily onto the hall flooring he paused a moment, in a lull of the gale, to wait for the next flurry and the crashing of the rain against the roof. The moment it began he started once more, turning to the right, determined to try each door he came to and so start a gradual examination of the house. But he had hardly taken a step on his way when a light click sounded close behind him, and then a shaft of light struck past his head.

      Ronicky Doone whirled and dived down, not away from the direction of the light, but toward it, whipping out his revolver as he fell upon his supporting left arm. The shaft of light, launched from a pocket electric torch, was wandering wildly. Behind it he caught the dimly outlined figure of a man. Then the light fell on him as he gathered himself for another leap, and a revolver roared straight before him.

      There was a twitch at the shoulder of his coat—the bullet had come as close as that!—then Ronicky Doone sprang, animallike, from hands to knees, swerving out of the flash of the light as the gun spoke again and missed again. He struck with his left hand as he shot in. All his force, multiplied threefold by nervous ecstasy, went into that whipping punch, and the knuckles crunched home against bone. It was a solid impact. The jar of it left his arm numb to the shoulder, and the vague outline of the man behind the light collapsed.

      As he did so, the electric torch fell from his hand, spinning and filling the hall with wild flashings until it struck the floor. The revolver crashed to the boards an instant later, and Ronicky, scooping up the light, turned it down into the face of his victim.

      It was a big body, lying with the long arms thrown out crosswise, so completely stunning had the blow been. Ronicky, estimating the power in that now inert bulk, was grateful that his first punch had struck home. In a struggle hand to hand he would not have had a chance for victory.

      Somewhere in the distance there was a woman’s shrill cry of terror. Ronicky paid little heed to it, for he was too busy examining that upturned face. His victim was a man of about forty-five, with a seamed and lined face, clean shaven, rather handsome, and sadly worn by the passage of time and many troubles, no doubt. But the expression was neither savage nor sneaking. The forehead was broad and high with noble capacity for thought. The nose was strongly but not cruelly arched. The mouth was sensitive. If this were Hugh Dawn, he was by no means the criminal type as Ronicky Doone knew it, and in his wanderings he had known many a yegg, many a robber.

      The knocked-out man began to revive and came suddenly to his senses, sitting up and blinking at the dazzling shaft of light. Then he reached for his fallen gun, but the foot of Ronicky stamped over it at the same instant.

      All this, of course, from the first snapping on of the light, had filled only a few seconds. Now the calling of the girl broke out clearly upon them as she threw open a door. Ronicky saw her form rushing down toward them and heard the rustling of her clothes. There was the dim flicker of a gun in her hand.

      “Lady,” said Ronicky, holding the electric light far from him, but still keeping it focused on the face of the other man so that his own body would be in deep comparative shadow. “I’m here for no harm. But mind your gun. If this is Hugh Dawn—if he means anything to you—mind what you do. I’ve got him covered!”

      “Oh, dad!” cried the girl excitedly. “Are you—”

      “I’m not hurt,” replied the other. “They’ve got me, that’s all. Stand up?”

      “Stand up,” said Ronicky. “Are you Hugh Dawn?”

      The other rose. He was even larger than he had seemed when he was lying on the floor, and his glance wistfully sought his fallen revolver.

      “I’m Hugh Dawn, right enough,” he said. “I don’t figure that you knew that?” And he sneered mockingly at Ronicky. The girl, despite the warnings of Ronicky, had slipped to his side. Now he caught the revolver out of her hand and glared at his captor.

      “I see the gun,” said Ronicky. “Don’t try any play with it, Mr. Dawn. I’m sure watching you close. Understand?”

      The other nodded and swallowed. But there was a desperate determination about his face that made Ronicky uneasy.

      “Where’s—the chief?” gasped Hugh Dawn. “Where’s he?”

      And his glance rolled up and down the hall.

      “Not here,” said Ronicky, “but coming.”

      The other quaked and then shrugged his shoulders.

      “Well?”

      “Get me straight,” said Ronicky. “I’ve not come here to get you. If I wanted to do that I could shoot you down now. I want something else.”

      “I know what you want,” shouted the other, “but you won’t get it! Not if I have to die ten times! Never!”

      “What you’re talking about,” said Ronicky, “I don’t know. Here’s my yarn; believe it or not, as you want to! I lay out in a barn tonight, heard Jack Moon and his crew plot to come here and grab you, and rode on around them to give you a warning. That’s

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