6
Cunningham suddenly swung his pistol out. He was sweating in the horror they had inspired. Once they came for him he would be calm enough, but this ghoulish waiting until he should be momentarily off his guard was ghastly. He flung out his pistol in a wide arc.
“I’ll show you some target practise,” he said suddenly. “Clear a lane over there.”
He waved his hand and they parted reluctantly. Now and then they exchanged glances. He could see some of them peering about, as if looking to make sure that no one else was within sight. Cunningham managed to snatch a glance at Gray. Gray was staring at him with a queer distaste, and Cunningham tried to explain what he planned with a significant look. He’d clear a path for a rush, and then they could stand these people off.
He slipped fresh shells in place of the exploded ones.
“Now I’ll hit that tree-trunk over there,” he said sharply. Gray should understand and be ready to leap up. “Watch the bark fly.”
But Gray was sitting quite still. He was regarding Cunningham suspiciously.
“Like this,” snapped Cunningham. He glanced at Gray and made an almost imperceptible motion for him to jump up. They’d have to run for it in a moment.
He pressed on the trigger, and his eyes came back to the sights just as the hammer was falling. It was too late to stop the explosion and his heart stood still. From behind the very tree-trunk he was aiming at a girl’s face had peered.
From sheer instinct he jerked at the weapon almost before his brain had registered his impression. It went off with a roar, and as the echoes died away he heard the rattling of several twigs falling to the ground.
Cunningham gasped and the revolver nearly fell from his hands as he saw her still standing there, gazing interestedly at him. He rushed toward her, his terror of an instant before all forgotten.
“I might have killed you!” he gasped. “Are you hurt? Are you?”
Her eyes opened wide and she flushed faintly. She moved as if to flee. Then she glanced at the Strangers grouped about the place Cunningham had left and stepped out into the open.
“You—you made a very loud noise,” she said uncertainly. “That was all.”
It was the Girl. It was Maria, whose picture Cunningham had treasured and about whom he had day-dreamed. At another time he might have risen to the high heroic moment. He might have appeared in better guise. But in the transcendent relief of finding her safe his wrought-up emotions found escape in the form of rage. He whirled on the Strangers.
“Why didn’t you tell me she was there?” he demanded furiously. His horror of a moment before had vanished completely. He was angry enough to have waded into the bunch bare-handed. “You knew she was there! Damn it, I might have killed her! I might have shot her! Idiots!” he cried, half sobbing from relief; “you let me come close to killing her!”
Gray was still staring at him curiously.
“If you really mean these people well, Cunningham——” he was beginning curtly, when Cunningham turned to the girl again.
“Please forgive me,” he begged, still white and shaking from his scare. “I didn’t know you were there!”
Her eyes met his wonderingly. Then the expression in them changed. She read the terror and understood its cause. She smiled shyly.
“I was safe. My friends were there.”
She meant the thirty or more Strangers, staring puzzledly at Cunningham and bewildered by his evident horror. Cunningham’s head cleared with a jerk. He felt more than ever like a fool. All men are tempted to feel that way in the presence of a pretty girl, if only to keep the pretty girl company, but Cunningham saw that the Strangers were honestly at a loss. There had been no secret purpose. They were as incredibly uninformed as they had seemed and they had been listening with all the attention their actions had displayed.
“Look here,” said Cunningham abjectly, “I guess I seem like a fool to you, Maria, but I did come here only to see you. I—I’ve been day-dreaming about you. Let me show you why I was scared and you’ll understand what it would have meant if I had hit you.”
He took her hand and fitted it to the pistol-grip. He put her finger on the trigger.
“Now, point it off that way,” he went on anxiously, “squeeze on this thing....”
There was the swift thudding of horses’ hoofs. A nasal voice cried shrilly, “Halt in th’ name of th’ law!”
Cunningham started and instinctively held fast to his revolver, which someone seemed trying to jerk away. He caught a glimpse of flying figures melting into the woods. Then he saw two men on horseback plunging up to the spot. One wore a bright star on his chest and the other carried a rifle.
“There, naow!” the sheriff of the county exclaimed, panting. “I got one of ’em, even if it was a girl.”
He lunged from his horse and seized Maria, who was wrenching frantically to get her finger out of the trigger-guard Cunningham had held tightly.
She flashed a glance of bitter hatred at Cunningham.
“Easy,” said Cunningham with sudden heat. “What are you arresting her for? I was showing her how to shoot a revolver.”
“No thanks to ye for that, then,” panted the sheriff. “Here, Joel, come an’ help me get the cuffs on her.”
Cunningham brought down a heavy hand on the sheriff’s arm.
“What’s this for?” he demanded hotly. “I didn’t hold her for you!”
“I’m arrestin’ her for murder, that’s what. She’s one of them Strange People, she is. An’ they killed that furriner last night. You know that. You saw him this mornin’. Mr. Vladimir told me. Joel, come here an’ help me. Help me get her hands in these cuffs.”
Cunningham wrenched the sheriff’s hands free.
“Don’t be a fool,” he snapped angrily. “That killing was the work of men! This girl had nothing to do with it!”
“I warn ye not to interfere with the law!” growled the sheriff.
“I’m not interfering with the law,” said Cunningham hotly. “I’m interfering with your doing what Vladimir’s bribed you to do! This girl would never get to jail. Vladimir’s much too anxious to get some of the Strangers in his hands. Hands off!”
He thrust the girl behind him, where she cowered for a moment.
“Get out of here,” snapped Cunningham. “And you start something about my resisting the law and I’ll start something about your taking bribes! Clear out and leave this girl alone!”
“Ye better not shield a murderer——” whined the sheriff uneasily.
“If you want murderers, look for men,” said Cunningham coldly. “Then I won’t stop you. But stick to the law, Sheriff, and forget about Vladimir.”
He drew back with the girl behind him and his eyes blazing. The revolver that had snared the girl was still clutched in his hand. The sheriff gazed at him venomously.
“I’ll tend to ye,” he said uncertainly.
“Try it,” Cunningham growled as he watched the two men ride slowly away. He watched until they had disappeared. Then he turned to Maria.
She was gone.
Cunningham stared blankly, then grinned sheepishly at Gray.
“I guess that was foolish, maybe,” he apologized, “but he made me mad.”
Gray was white as a sheet, but he tried to smile as he got up stiffly.
“You did good work for me,” he said grimly. “Look at my coat.”
He turned and showed a little rip in the back.
“When those chaps made for the woods,” he said grimly, “one of them dropped behind my own particular boulder and stuck the point of a knife in my back. If the sheriff had taken that girl off, the knife would have been sunk in me. Ugh! Let’s go back to Coulters.”