CHAPTER X.
GIVING HIM ANOTHER CHANCE.
"Hey! what was that, Con!" Elmer heard the shorter man say, inside the place.
"Oh, we're found out! It's all over, Phil!" gasped the other fellow, in a sudden panic.
"Shut up, yuh fool! Reckon as how 'twar only the night wind. Here's the can; take hold and we'll kerry her out! I jest gotter do it, now!"
That was enough for the boy outside. He understood that they must be at the farther end of the little house, and evidently bending over the object of their solicitude. His chance had come!
Elmer had already taken hold of the door, and laid out his plan of campaign. He expected every act to dovetail with the others, so as to form a complete whole. And not more than two seconds must elapse after he once started to move, before he finished his work.
Slam went the door shut. A low cry from within told how the nervous Con had given expression to his alarm. Utterly regardless of consequences, now that he had made a start, Elmer slapped the hasp over the stout staple, and then feeling for the hanging nail proceeded to drop it into its place.
Things worked like a charm. The nail was shot into place in even less time than Elmer had anticipated. He only hoped that the staples at either end of the hasp were clinched. Then, if the imprisoned men threw their weight against the door, it was not so apt to give.
Elmer did not wait to hear what happened after he had shot his bolt. He expected a great commotion would begin immediately, and the determined Phil start to using any tool upon which his groping hands might alight in the endeavor to batter his way to freedom.
"Now for the house and the colonel!" was what Elmer thought, as, turning, he made a bee line for the front door, out of which he had passed not more than fifteen minutes before.
The first thing he knew he was pounding at the panel, after having pressed the electric button. On either side of the door were long panes of stained glass; and while the boy could not have recognized anyone coming in answer to his summons, he did discover that there was a light within the broad hall. This would tend to prove that the colonel could not have gone up to his room.
Yes, now he could see some one issue from the library, and advance toward the door. Oh, if he would only hurry! From the direction of the tool house came sounds of heavy pounding. Doubtless the imprisoned rascals, fearing that they had been caught in a trap, were trying to smash their way out. What if they should strike a light, and that oil catch on fire! Perhaps there was gasoline stored in the place as well as kerosene!
Now the colonel was unlocking the door. It was something unusual to have such a loud summons beaten upon the panels of his front door; but while some men might have shown signs of timidity, this old traveler, seasoned to adventure, was opening up without the first symptom of alarm.
As the door flew open he looked keenly at the figure before him.
"What, you, Elmer, my boy!" he exclaimed. "Why, what has happened? I hope you did not take a nasty header off your wheel?"
"No, no, sir, it wasn't that!" cried the scout, hardly knowing what to say first, so as to impress the gentleman with the seriousness of the occasion. "Some men—they mean to burn your house—the two who escaped from the lock-up, Phil Lally and Con!"
"What's that?" exclaimed the colonel, stiffening up instantly and showing all the signs that mark the conduct of an old war horse at scenting battle smoke. "How do you know this, my boy?"
"I heard them talking—my wheel was punctured, and I put it in the tool house. Then I followed them. They were going to get kerosene to use. They stepped into the tool house, and I slammed the door shut on them, and fastened it! Listen, sir, that pounding you hear is them trying to get out!"
"Well, well, did I ever!" ejaculated the astonished gentleman. "Wait here just a minute till I can get something."
He turned and ran into his library as though he were nearer thirty years of age than seventy. In the excitement of the moment he had forgotten that time had silvered his head and given him twitches of rheumatism. The colonel was young again, and ready to respond to the call of duty.
Elmer listened. He could hear that terrible pounding keeping up from the back of the house, and understood what it meant. Oh, how he hoped that in the darkness Phil could not see to wield his ax effectively, and might thus fail to cut a way out! For it seemed as though part of the victory would be lost if those two rascals secured their freedom.
Perhaps the colonel was gone a full minute. It seemed ten to the waiting boy, who was wrongly figuring time by the rapid pulsations of his heart.
Then he became aware of the fact that once more the gentleman had joined him, and that he was busily engaged pushing some cartridges into a shotgun he carried.
"Here, Elmer, take this!" he exclaimed, thrusting the weapon into the hands of the scout. "I know you are used to handling firearms, or I wouldn't ask you to do it. Now, come with me, please, and we'll see if we can't influence those two fire-makers to be good!"
Down the steps he ran, so that Elmer was even put to it to keep at his heels. At least the prisoners of the tool house could not have as yet managed to effect their escape, for the battering sounds still continued, accompanied by loud excited cries.
Quickly the two hurried along, until they arrived on the scene of action.
"Look, sir, there's another of them coming!" cried Elmer, pointing to a skulking figure among the bushes, indistinctly seen.
"Here, you, come out of that; we've got you covered, and you can't escape!" exclaimed the colonel, who was gripping something that shone like steel in his right hand, and which Elmer guessed must be a pistol of some sort.
"Don't shoot, kunnel!" cried a quivering voice; "'deed, an' I surrenders, suh! I reckon I's pow'ful glad yuh kim. I's Sam, suh, yuh man Sam! Please don' pull de triggah ob dat gun, Mars Kunnel!"
It was the coachman who had driven Elmer and Mark on the occasion of the latter's being summoned to an interview with the old traveler.
"Here, go and get a lantern at once, Sam, and run for all you're worth!" called the old gentleman. "Meanwhile, the rest of us will surround the tool house, and be ready to give them a volley if they succeed in breaking out!"
Sam had already turned and hurried away toward the stables, where he must have been sitting in his room at the time the row broke out, that drew him toward the scene of the disturbance.
Of course, the last remark of the colonel's had been made with the intention of its being overheard by the men who were fastened inside the outhouse. The sounds of pounding had suddenly ceased as the colored man started to answer the command of the colonel, and those within could easily hear every word uttered.
A silence followed that was only broken by low groans within. Doubtless the more timid rascal was repenting of having been led into this dangerous game of seeking revenge. The dreadful penalty meted out to house burners loomed up before his horrified eyes. The only pity was that he had not allowed himself to see this earlier, and resisted temptation.
"Hello!"
That was Phil calling. His heavy voice seemed to express all the signs of acknowledged defeat. Elmer waited to see what the colonel would do, nor was he kept long in suspense.
"This time you're caught in a trap like a rat, Phil Lally," remarked the old gentleman. "I'm sorry for you, more than sorry for your poor old mother; but since you took to drink this was bound to be your end. It came quicker than I thought, I admit, but you've got nobody to blame save yourself."
An intense silence followed, broken only by occasional low whines from the weaker rascal. Then Phil called out again.
"Well, I reckon yuh speaks only the truth, kunnel. I allers had a job up tuh the time I took tuh drinkin'. Sense then hard luck has follered clost tuh my heels. An' now I sure knows it's got me. I'd like one more chanct tuh try an' do better; but I reckon it's too late, an' I'll have tuh grin an' bear it."
Elmer heard him give a big sigh. Somehow the sound affected the boy more than he would have believed possible. He had supposed that Phil must be just naturally a bad man, wicked all the way through. Now he realized that it all came through his one weakness, a love for strong drink.
The colonel moved up a step closer to the door. Elmer wondered whether he meant to throw open the barrier and hold the two scoundrels up as they came forth. But he mistook the action of the old gentleman.
"Phil!" he said, quietly.
"Yes, sir," answered the gruff tones from within, but no longer filled with a savage brutality, for Elmer could detect a quaver as of strong emotion. Perhaps it may have been the mention of that old mother whose heart would be broken when her boy was sent to prison for a long term. And somehow Elmer found himself hanging on the next words of the gentleman with an eagerness which he could hardly understand—for it seemed to him that a human soul was trembling in the balance.
"Listen to me, Phil," continued the colonel. "What if I gave you one more chance to make good; do you think you could keep your pledge, if you gave it to me, never to take a single drop again as long as you live? Are you strong enough to do this for the sake of that old mother of yours?"
There was an inarticulate sound from within. It might have been Phil talking to himself; but Elmer was more inclined to believe something else—that the strong man was almost overwhelmed by the magnanimity of the gentleman whom he had once served, and whose kindness of the past he had returned so meanly.
"How about it, Phil?" continued the colonel. "Shall I 'phone in to town and have the police come out here to take you into custody, or are you ready to put your signature to a pledge for me to hold?"
"I'll do it, kunnel, I'll do it, and thank yuh a thousand times for the chanct!" broke out the man. "Oh, what a crazy fool I was to go agin the best friend I ever had! I'll sign anything yuh arsks me tuh, an' I'll keep it, too, or die atryin'!"
"I'm glad to hear you say that, Phil," went on the colonel, with a low laugh. "You were a good gardener up to the time you began to booze and neglect your work My new man proved a failure, and I've let him go. The job's open, Phil!"
"For me?" cried the man, as though utterly unable to believe his ears. "D'ye mean, kunnel, yu'd dar take me back agin, arter the way I been actin'?"
"Oh, we'll try and forget all that, Phil. It wasn't you, but the devil you took inside, that made you act that way. And since you're never going to give way to the tempter again I guess I'll risk the chances."
He raised his hand and removed the big nail, just as Sam came running up, bearing a lighted lantern in his ebony grip. As the door opened a figure issued forth. It was the short man, and his head was bowed on his chest, which seemed to be heaving convulsively, either because of his recent exertions with the ax, or through some emotion.
"Is that straight, kunnel, an' do yuh mean to fergive me?" he asked, humbly, as he stood there before the old gentleman.
"For the sake of your old mother, yes, I'm going to give you another chance, Phil. And let's hope you can make good. I'm not one bit afraid, if only you stick to your word. And to prove it, here's my hand!"
The man seized it eagerly. He was shaking with emotion now, and somehow Elmer felt his own eyes grow moist; for he realized that he was looking on one of the tragedies of life right then and there; and the thought that he had had a hand in bringing this finish about, and making the repentance of Phil possible, thrilled the Boy Scout strangely.
No one paid any attention to the skulking figure that slipped out from the open door of the tool house, and ran hastily off. Of course it was Phil's confederate, the timid Con Stebbins, who, seeing an opening for escape, had hastened to avail himself of it.