CHAPTER XXIII.
FIRE AND RAPINE.
The Kakisas ran down the trail like a heap of dry leaves propelled by a squall of wind. To Ambrose it all seemed as senseless and unreal as a nightmare.
The alarm had been given at a moment of extreme emotional excitement, and restraint was thrown to the winds. It was like a rout after battle.
The men shouted; the women wailed and forgot their children. The throng was full of lost children; they fell by the road and lay shrieking.
Ambrose never forgot the picture as he ran, of an old crone, crazed by excitement, whirling like a dervish, rocking her skinny arms and twisting her neck into attitudes as grotesque as gargoyles.
The trail they covered was a rough wagon-road winding among patches of poplar scrub and willow. Issuing out upon the wide clearing which contained their village they saw afar the little storehouse burning like a torch, and redoubled their cries.
They swept past the teepees without stopping, the biggest ones in the van, the little ones tailing off and falling down and getting up again with piteous cries.
Reaching the spot, all could see there was nothing to be done. The shack was completely enveloped in names. There were not half a dozen practicable water-pails in the tribe, and anyhow the fire was a good furlong from the river.
Ambrose, seeing what a start it had got, guessed that it was no accident. It had been set, and set in such a way as to insure the shack's total destruction. He considered the sight grimly.
The mystery he had first scented that morning was assuming truly formidable proportions. He believed that Watusk was a party to it; but he could not conceive of any reason why Watusk should burn up his people's bread.
There was nothing to be done, and the people ceased their cries. They stood gazing at the ruby and vermilion flames with wide, charmed eyes.
Among the pictures that this terrible night etched with acid on Ambrose's subconsciousness, the sight of them standing motionless, all the dark faces lighted by the glare, was not the least impressive.
With a sickening anxiety he perceived the signs of a rising savage rage. The men scowled and muttered. More than once he heard the words: "John Gaviller!" Men slipped away to the teepees and returned with their guns.
Ambrose looked anxiously for Watusk. He could not reach the people except through the man he distrusted.
He found him by himself in a kind of retreat among some poplars a little way off, where he could see without being seen. Ambrose dragged him back willy-nilly, adjuring him by the way.
"The people are working themselves into a rage. They speak of
Gaviller. You and I have got to prevent trouble. You must tell them
Gaviller is a hard man, but he keeps the law. He did not do this
thing. This is the act of another enemy."
"What good tell them?" said Watusk sullenly. "They not believe."
"You are their leader!" cried Ambrose. "It's up to you to keep them out of trouble. If you do not speak, whatever happens will be on your head! And I will testify against you. Tell the people to wait until to-morrow and I pledge myself to find out who did this."
"You know who did it?" asked Watusk sharply.
"I will not speak until I have proof," Ambrose said warily.
"What happened to the men you left on guard?"
"They say they play jack-pot with a lantern near the door," said
Watusk. "See not'ing. Hear not'ing. Poof! she is all burn!"
"H-m!" said Ambrose.
They were now among the people.
"Speak to them!" he cried. "Tell them if they keep quiet Ambrose Doane will pay for the flour that is burned up, and will grind them some more. Tell them to wait, and I promise to make things right. Tell them if they make trouble to-night the police will come and take them away, and their children will starve!"
Watusk did, indeed, move among the men speaking to them, but with a half-hearted air. He cut a pitiful figure. It was not clear whether he was unwilling to oppose them or afraid.
Ambrose did not even know what Watusk was saying to them. At any rate the men ignored their leader. Ambrose was wild at the necessity which made him dependent on such a poor creature.
He followed Watusk, imploring them in English to keep their heads. Some of the sense of what he said must have reached them through his tones and gestures, but they only turned sullen, suspicious shoulders upon him.
That Ambrose should take the part of his known enemy, John Gaviller, seemed to their simple minds to smack of double-dealing.
The roof of the burning shack fell in, sending a lovely eruption of sparks to the black sky. At the same moment as if by a signal one of the savages brandished his gun aloft and broke into a passionate denunciation.
Once more Ambrose heard the name of Gaviller. Instantly the crowd was in an uproar again. Cries of angry approval answered the speaker from every throat. The man was beside himself. He waved his gun in the direction of the river.
Ambrose waited to hear no more. He saw what was coming. Black horror faced him. He ran to the river, straining every nerve. He heard them behind him. Then it was that he so bitterly reproached himself for having left the york boat within reach.
Leaping down the bank, he put his back under the bow and struggled to push it off. He would gladly have sacrificed it. It was too heavy for him to budge. Tole Grampierre and Greer reached his side.
"Quick!" cried Ambrose breathlessly. "Set her adrift!"
But at that moment the whole tribe came pouring over the bank like a flood. Ambrose and the breed sprang into the bow of the boat in an endeavor to hold it against them. Old Simon presently joined them.
"Back! Back!" cried Ambrose. "For God's sake listen to me, men! Go to your lodges and talk until morning. The truth will be clear in the daylight! The police are coming. They will give you justice.
"Justice is on your side now. If you break the white man's law he will wipe you out! Where is your leader? He knows the truth of what I say. Watusk is not here! He won't risk his neck!"
It had about as much effect as a trickle of water upon a conflagration. They made no attempt to dislodge Ambrose from in front, but swarmed into the water on either side, and putting their backs under the boat, lifted her off the stones. Scrambling over the sides, they shouldered Ambrose and the breed ashore from behind.
Ambrose shouted to the breeds: "Go home and stay there all night. You must not be mixed up in this."
"What will you do?" cried Simon.
The york boat was already floating off, the crew running out the sweeps. Ambrose, without answering, ran into the water and clambered aboard. In the confusion and the dark the Indians could not tell if he were white or red.
He made himself inconspicuous in the bow. His only conscious thought was how to get a gun. He had no idea of what to do upon landing.
Upon pushing off, moved by a common instinct of caution, the Indians fell silent, and during the crossing there was no sound but the grumbling of the clumsy sweeps in the thole-pins, and the splash of the blades.
Standing on the little platform astern, silhouetted against the sky,
Ambrose recognized the man who had given the word to attack Gaviller.
He marked him well. He was of middle size, a tall man among the little Kakisas, with a great shock of hair cut off like a Dutchman's at the neck.
On the way over Ambrose was greatly astonished to feel his sleeve gently plucked. He studied the men beside him, and finally made out Tole under his flaring hatbrim.
Into his ear he whispered: "I told you to go home."
"I go with you," Tole whispered back. "I your friend."
Ambrose's anxious heart was warmed. He needed a friend. He gripped
Tole's shoulder.
"Have you a gun?" he asked.
The breed shook his head.
"Get guns for us both if you can," said Ambrose.
On the other side, the instant the york boat touched the shingle, the Indians set up a chorus of yelling frightful to hear, and scrambled ashore.
Ambrose and Tole were among the first out. Together they drew aside a little way into the darkness to see what would happen. There was no need to warn the Company people; the yelling did that.
The Indians set off across the beach and up the bank, working themselves up with their strident, brutish cries. The habits of thirty years of peace were shed like a garment. The young men of the tribe had never heard the war-cry until that moment.
Ambrose followed at their heels. At the top of the bank, to his unbounded relief, they turned toward the store. He still had a little time. All he could do was to offer himself to the defenders.
"I'm going to the side door of Gaviller's house," he said to Tole.
"Get guns for us, somehow, and come to me there."
He knew that Tole, who was as dark as the Kakisas, and in no way distinguished from them in dress, ran little risk of discovery in the confusion.
There was no sign of life about the post; every window was dark. The
Indians swarmed across the quadrangle without meeting any one.
As Ambrose reached the fence around Gaviller's house he heard the store-door and the windows go in with a series of crashes. He crouched beside the gate to wait for Tole. It was useless for him to offer himself without a weapon.
They started a fire outside the store. Fed with excelsior and empty boxes, the flames leaped up instantaneously, illuminating every corner of the quadrangle, and throwing gigantic, distorted shadows of men on the store front.
On the nearer side of the fire the silhouettes darted back and forth with the malignant activity of demons in a pit. Men issued out of the store with armfuls of goods that they flung regardless to the flames.
Already they were dressing themselves up in layer after layer of clothes until they no longer resembled human creatures. What they could not wear they hung about their necks.
Some came out tearing at food like wolves. Others darted into dark corners of the square to hide their prizes. A man appeared dressed in a woman's wrapper and hat, and capered around the fire to the accompaniment of shrieks of obscene laughter.
There was a continuous sound of rending and crashing from within the store. The trader in Ambrose groaned to witness the destruction of good weapons and cloth stuffs and food. Some one would suffer for the lack of it in the winter.
Within the store, by the door, a furious altercation arose. This was where the case of cheap jewelry stood. Two men rolled out on the platform fighting.
Ambrose saw a raised arm, and the gleam of steel. After a few moments one of the men got up and the other lay still. Thereafter, all who went in and came out stepped indifferently over his body.
Ambrose gazed fascinated and oddly unmoved. It was like a horrible play in a theater. The insane yelling rose and fell intermittently.
At last Ambrose saw a man detach himself from the group and run around the square, darting behind the houses for cover. The runner reappeared nearer to him, and he saw that it was Tole. He came to him, running low under shelter of the palings. He thrust a rifle into Ambrose's hands.
"Loaded!" he gasped. "Plenty more shells in my pocket."
"Did you hear any talk?" asked Ambrose. "Are they coming over here?"
"Talk no sense," said Tole. "Only yell. It is moch bad. They got whisky."
"Whisky!" echoed Ambrose, aghast.
"A big jug. It was in the store."
Ambrose's heart sank. "Come," he said grimly.
CHAPTER XXIV.
COLINA RELENTS.
As Ambrose and Tole started in the gate they were hailed from the dark doorway under the porch. "Stand, or I fire!" It was the voice of Macfarlane.
"It is Ambrose Doane and Tole Grampierre," cried Ambrose.
They heard an exclamation of astonishment from the door.
"What do you want?" demanded the voice.
"To help you defend yourselves."
From the sounds that reached him, Ambrose gathered that the door was open and that Macfarlane stood within the hall. From farther back Colina's voice rang out:
"How dare you! Do you expect us to believe you? Go back to your friends!"
"They are not my men," Ambrose answered doggedly.
"Wait!" cried still another voice. Ambrose recognized the smooth accents of Gordon Strange. "We can't afford to turn away any defenders. I say let him come in."
Ambrose was surprised, and none too well pleased to hear his part taken in this quarter. There was a silence. He apprehended that they were consulting in the hall. Finally Macfarlane called curtly:
"You may come in."
As he went up the path Ambrose saw that the windows of the lower floor had been roughly boarded up. The thought struck him oddly: "How could they have had warning of what was going to happen?"
"There's barbed wire around the porch," said Macfarlane, "You'll have to get over it the best way you can."
Ambrose and Tole helped each other through the obstruction. They found Macfarlane sitting on a chair in the doorway, with his rifle across his knees.
"Go into the library," he said.
The door was on the right hand as one entered the hall. Within a lamp had just been lighted; even as Ambrose entered Colina was turning up the wick.
Heavy curtains had been bung over the windows to keep any rays of light from escaping, and the door was instantly closed behind Ambrose and Tole.
Inside the little room that he already knew so well Ambrose found all the defenders gathered. The only one strange to him was little Pringle, the missionary, who sat primly on the sofa. It had much the look of an ordinary evening party, but the row of guns by the door told a tale.
John Gaviller sat in his swivel chair behind his desk, leaning his head on his hand. Ambrose was shocked by the change that three months' illness had worked in him.
The self-assured, the scornfully affable trader had become a mere pantaloon with sunken cheeks and trembling hands. Ambrose looked with quick compassion toward Colina.
She went to her father and stood by his chair with a hand on his shoulder. She coldly ignored Ambrose's glance.
"What have you to say for yourself?" Gaviller demanded in a weak, harsh voice.
"Do you know the reason for this attack?" demanded Ambrose.
Several voices answered "No!"
"All the flour was stored in Michel Trudeau's shack. Some wretch set fire to it and destroyed it all. Naturally they thought it was done by John Gaviller's orders. This is their reprisal."
"You dared to think we would stoop to such a thing!" cried Colina.
The general animosity that he felt like a wall around him made Ambrose defiant.
"I said they thought so," he retorted. "I harangued them until my throat was sore. I couldn't hold them, and I hid myself and came with them, thinking perhaps I could help you."
"How did they come?" asked Strange smoothly.
"In my boat that they seized," said Ambrose.
"It all comes back to you whichever way you trace it," cried Gaviller. "If you had not attacked us yesterday, they would never have dared to-day! You have brought us to this! I hope you're satisfied. I warned you what would happen as a result of your tampering with the natives. If we're all murdered it will be on your head!"
"On the contrary, if we're murdered it will be because they found whiskey in your store," retorted Ambrose.
"Impossible!" cried Gaviller and Strange together.
Ambrose laid a hand on Tole's shoulder. "This man saw it on the counter," he said. "I sent him to the store to get guns for us both. It had no business to be there, as you all know."
"They must have brought it with them," said Strange. "I locked the store myself."
"Of course they brought it," said Gaviller.
"Not much use to discuss that point," said Ambrose curtly. "They have it, and it has robbed them of the last vestiges of manhood. They're nothing but brutes now."
The old man rose. "Silence!" he cried quaveringly. "You are insolent! By your light-mindedness and vanity you have raised a storm that no man can see the end of! You have plunged us into the horrors of Indian warfare after thirty years' peace! How dare you come here and attempt to hector us! Silence, I say, and keep your place!"
"Father," murmured Colina remonstratingly. "You must save your strength."
He shook her off impatiently. "Must I submit to be bearded in my own house by this scamp, this fire-brand, this destroyer?"
Ambrose could not bandy words with this wreck of a strong man. He signed to Tole, and they went outside and joined Macfarlane.
The three of them waited in the doorway in a kind of armed truce, smoking and watching the Indians across the square. At any moment they expected to see the yelling demons turn against the house.
By and by Ambrose heard the library door open. The light inside had been put out again for greater safety.
He heard Colina come out, and go the other way in the passage. He knew her by the rustle of her skirts. She went up-stairs on some errand.
His heart leaped up. He could no longer deceive himself with the fancy that he had ceased to love her. Not with death staring them both in the face. He quietly made his way back into the house to intercept her on her return.
When he heard her coming he whispered her name. Here in the middle of the house it was totally dark.
"You!" she gasped, stopping short. But the scorn had gone out of her voice, and somehow he knew that he was already in her thoughts when he spoke. He put out a hand toward her.
"Don't touch me!" she whispered, shrinking sharply.
There, in the compelling darkness, with danger waiting outside, they could not hide their souls from each other. "Colina," he whispered, "don't harden yourself against me to-night. I love you!"
Her breath came quickly. She could not speak. Her anger against Ambrose was, at the best, a pumped-up affair. She felt obliged to hate him because she loved her father. And her overweening pride had supported it. All this fell away now. She longed to believe in him.
Perceiving his advantage he followed it close.
"It may be the last night," he whispered. "I'm not afraid to speak of death to you. You're no coward. Colina, it would be hard to die thinking that you hated me!"
"Don't!" she murmured painfully. "Don't try to soften me. I need to be hard."
"Not to me," he whispered. "I love you!'"
She was silent. He heard her breathing on a shaken breast.
"If I knew it was my last word I should say the same," he went on. "I came back to Enterprise because I thought I had to come to save you!"
"It hasn't turned out that way, has it?" she said sadly and bitterly.
"There is some evil influence working against us all," he said. "If I live I shall show you."
"I don't know what to think," she murmured.
They were standing close together. Suddenly the sense of her nearness in the dark, the delicate emanation of her hair, of her whole person, overwhelmed his senses like a wave.
"Oh, my darling," he murmured brokenly. "Those devils outside can only kill me once. You make me die a thousand deaths!"
"Ah, don't!" she whispered sharply. "Not now. First, I must believe in you!"
He beat down the passion that dizzied him. He sought for her hand and gripped it firmly. She allowed it. "Listen," he said. "Take me into the light and look in my eyes."
Her hand turned in his and took command of it, drawing him after her. Crossing the stair-hall they entered the dining-room. Colina closed the door and lighted the lamp.
Ambrose gazed at her hungrily. She came to him straight and, offering him both her hands, looked deep into his eyes.
"Now tell me," she murmured.
This was the real Colina, simple as a child. Her eyes—the lamp being behind her—showed as deep and dark as the night sky.
Her lovely face yearned up to his, and Ambrose's self-command tottered again—but this was no moment for passion. His voice shook, but his eyes were as steady as hers.
"I love you," he said quietly. "When you hated me most I was doing the best for you that I could. I—I'm afraid I sound like a prig. But it is the truth. I stood out against you when I thought you were wrong because I loved you!"
Her eyes fell. Her hands crept confidingly up his arms. "Ah! I want so to believe it," she faltered.
He thought he had won her again. His arms swept around her, crushing her to him. "My love!" he murmured.
She went slack in his arms and coldly averted her head. "Do not kiss me," she said.
He instantly released her.
"It's not the time," she murmured. "It seems horrible to-night. I—I am not ready. By what happens to-night I will know for always!"
"But, Colina—" he began.
She offered him her hand with a beseeching air. "I do not hate you any more," she said quickly. "You have a lot to forgive in me, too. Be merciful to me. Show me—to-night."
He drew a steadying breath. "Very well," he said. "I am contented."
CHAPTER XXV.
ACCUSED.
The long suspense wore terribly on the defenders of the house.
To wait inactive, listening to the frightful yelling and watching the play of the fire, not knowing at what moment yelling, bullets, and fire might be directed at themselves, was disorganizing to the stoutest nerves.
When the attack should come all knew that their refuge was more like a trap than a fortress. Ambrose wished to abandon the house for the Catholic church up the river.
This little structure was stoutly built of squared logs; moreover, it was possible that some lingering religious feeling might restrain the Indians from firing it.
The suggestion was received with suspicion. John Gaviller refused point-blank to leave his house.
As the hours passed without any change in the situation they began to feel as if they could endure no more. They were almost ready to wish that the savages might attack them and have done with it.
They endlessly and vainly discussed what might be passing in the red men's minds. Tole Grampierre, hearing this talk, offered to go and find out.
There was no danger to him, he said. Even if they should discover that he was not one of themselves, they had no quarrel with his people. Ambrose let him go.
He never returned. Ambrose and Macfarlane helped him through the barbed wire, and he set off, making a wide detour behind the houses that faced the river, meaning to join the Indians from the other side.
Most of the Indians had for some time been engaged in rifling the warehouse, which adjoined the store behind.
Ambrose and Macfarlane, anxiously watching from the porch, heard a sudden outcry raised in this quarter, and saw a man come running desperately around the corner of the store, pursued by a howling dozen.
Ambrose knew the runner by his rakish, broad-brimmed hat and flying sash. His heart leaped into the race. Tole was gaining.
"Go it! Go it!" Ambrose cried.
Tole was not bringing his pursuers back to the big house, but led the way off to one side by the quarters. Only a few yards separated him from the all-concealing darkness.
"He's safe!" murmured Ambrose.
At the same moment half of Tole's pursuers stopped dead, and their rifles barked. The flying figure spun around with uptossed arms, and plunged to the ground.
Ambrose groaned from the bottom of his breast. Nerved by a blind rage, his own gun instinctively went up. He could have picked off one or two from where he stood. Macfarlane flung a restraining arm around him.
"Stop! You'll bring the whole mob down on us!" he cried. He looked at Ambrose not unkindly. The sacrifice of Tole obliged him to change his attitude.
Ambrose turned in the door, silently grinding his teeth. At the end of the passage he found a chair, and dropped upon it, holding his head between his hands.
The face of Tole as he had first beheld it—proud, comely, and full of health—rose before him vividly.
He remembered that he had said to himself then: "Here is one young, like myself, that I can make a friend of." And almost the last thing Tole had said to him was: "I am your friend."
It was his youth and good looks that made it seem most horrible.
Ambrose pictured the bloody ruin lying in the square, and shuddered.
Gordon Strange offered to go out in order to make sure that Tole was beyond aid. It seemed like a kindly impulse, but Ambrose suspected its genuineness.
Even from where they were, a glance at the huddled figure was enough to tell the truth. None of the others would hear of Strange's going. Colina and Giddings pleaded with him. Gaviller forbade him. Strange with seeming reluctance finally gave in.
Whenever he witnessed such evidences of their trust in the half-breed Ambrose's lip curled in the darkness. He was more than ever convinced that Strange was a blackguard.
Evidence he had none, only his warning intuition, which, among the male sex at least, is not considered much to go on.
It gave Ambrose a shrewd little twinge of jealousy to hear Colina begging this man not to risk his life by leaving the house.
About three o'clock it began to seem as if they might allow themselves to relax a little. The madness of the Indians had burned itself out. There had not been enough whisky perhaps to maintain it for more than a few hours.
In any case, since the whites had been spared at the height of their fury, it seemed reasonable to hope they might escape altogether. The yelling had ceased.
Most of the men were now engaged in carrying flour and other goods down to the york boat. The watchers from the house wondered if they dared believe this signified an early departure.
As the tension let down it could be seen that John Gaviller was on the verge of a collapse. Colina strove with him to go to his room and rest on his bed.
He finally consented upon condition that she lay in her own room up-stairs. Colina and Gordon Strange half led, half carried the old man up-stairs.
Strange, returning, relieved Macfarlane's watch at the side door. Macfarlane, Ambrose, Giddings, and Pringle lay down on the sofa and on the floor of the library.
Three of them were almost instantly asleep. Not so Ambrose. As soon as he saw the half-breed left in sole charge his smoldering suspicions leaped into activity.
"If he's meditating anything queer this is the time he'll start it!" he thought. He took care to choose his position on the floor nearest the door. He left the door open.
From the outside only occasional sounds came now. The Indians were busy and silent. Within the house it was so still that Ambrose could hear Gordon Strange puffing at his pipe.
The half-breed was sitting in the doorway outside, with his chair tipped back against the wall. By and by Ambrose heard the front legs of the chair drop to the floor, and an instinct of caution bade him close his eyes and breathe deeply like a man asleep.
Sure enough Strange came into the library. He was taking no pains to be silent. Stepping over Ambrose he crossed to the mantel, where he fumbled for matches, and striking one made believe to relight his pipe.
Now Ambrose knew that Strange had matches, for when they took John Gaviller up he had seen him light the lamp at the foot of the stairs and return the box to his pocket.
This then must be a reconnoitering expedition. Ambrose had no doubt that when the match flared up the half-breed took a survey of the sleeping men.
He left the room, and Ambrose heard the chair tipped back against the wall once more.
A little later Ambrose became conscious that Strange was at the library door again, though this time he had not heard him come.
He paused a second and passed away as silently as a ghost—but whether back to his chair or farther into the house Ambrose could not tell.
Rising swiftly to his hands and knees he stuck his head out of the door. There was light enough from the outside to reveal the outlines of the chair—empty.
Without a thought Ambrose turned in the other direction and crept swiftly and softly through the passage into the stair hall. He did not know what he expected to find. His heart beat thick and fast.
He scarcely suspected danger to Colina, who was strong and brave. Was it her father? Reaching the foot of the stairs he heard a velvet footfall above.
He hastened up on all fours. The stairs were thickly carpeted. Gaining the top his strained ears detected the whisper of a sound that suggested the closing of Gaviller's door.
He knew the room. It was over the drawing-room, and cut off from the other rooms of the house. To reach the door one had to pass around the rail of the upper landing.
Arriving at the door he did indeed find it closed. Under the circumstances he was sure Colina would have left it open.
He did not stop to think of what he was doing. With infinite slow patience he turned the knob with one hand, holding his electric torch ready in the other.
When the door parted he flashed the light on the spot where he knew the bed stood. The picture vividly revealed in the little circle of light realized his unacknowledged fears.
He saw Strange kneeling on the bed, his face hideously distorted, his two hands at the old man's throat.
Strange yelped once in mingled terror and rage like an animal surprised—and with the quickness of an animal sprang at Ambrose.
The two men went down with a crash athwart the sill, and the door slammed back against the wall. There was a desperate struggle on the floor.
Strange was nerved with the strength of a madman. He could not have seen who it was that surprised him, but in that frantic embrace he learned.
"It's you, is it?" he snarled. "I've got you now!"
Forthwith he began to shout lustily for help. "Macfarlane! Giddings!"
Colina was already out of her room. She did not scream. The three men were on the stairs.
"Bring a light!" gasped both the struggling men.
It was Colina who lit a lamp and carried it out into the hall with a steady hand. Ambrose was seen to be uppermost. Recognizing the two men her face darkened with anger.
"What does this mean?" she cried. "Get up instantly!"
Ambrose wrenched himself free and stood up.
"Don't let him escape!" cried Strange.
Ambrose laughed a single note.
"He tried to kill your father!" panted Strange. "I arrived in the nick of time!"
Ambrose gasped and fell back in astonishment. Such stupendous effrontery was beyond the scope of his imagination.
"It's a lie!" he cried. "It was I who discovered him in the act of strangling your father!"
Then for the first Colina swayed. "Oh, God!" she murmured, "have we all gone mad!"
Macfarlane seized the lamp from her failing hand. Colina ran unevenly into her father's room. They heard her cry out within. Giddings ran to her aid. He made a light in the room and closed the door. The little parson moaned and wrung his hands.
Macfarlane had drawn his revolver. "If you make a move I'll shoot you down!" he said to Ambrose—thus making it clear whose story he believed.
"You can put it up," said Ambrose coolly. "I'm going to see this thing through."
Strange had got his grip again. His smoothness was largely restored.
He actually laughed. "He's a cool hand!" he said.
"You damned black villain!" said Ambrose softly. "I know you now. And you know that I know you!"
It did not improve Ambrose's case to say it, but he felt better. The half-breed changed color and edged behind Macfarlane's gun.
Colina presently reappeared, showing a white and stony face. "Mr. Pringle," she said, "go down and lock the side door and bring me the key. The rest of you go to the library and wait for me."
Ambrose flushed darkly. That Colina should even for a moment hold the balance between him and the half-breed made him burn with anger. Passionate reproaches leaped to his lips, but pride forced them back.
Turning stiffly he marched downstairs before Macfarlane without a word. She should suffer for this when he was exonerated, he vowed. That he might not be exonerated immediately did not occur to him.
In the library Strange and Macfarlane whispered together. When Pringle rejoined them all were silent. For upward of ten minutes they waited, facing each other grimly.
The strain was too great for the nerves of the little parson. He finally broke into a kind of terrified, dry sobbing.
"For God's sake say something!" he faltered. "This is too horrible!"
Macfarlane glanced at him with a contemptuous pity and stood a little aside from the door. "Better go into the front room," he said. "You can't do any good here."
The little man shook his head, and going to the window turned his back on them and endeavored to master his shaking.
Shortly afterward Colina came down-stairs. At her entrance all looked the question none dared put into words.
Colina veiled her eyes. "My father only fainted," she said levelly.
"Dr. Giddings says he is little worse than before."
A long breath escaped from her hearers.
Strange cunningly contrived to get his story out first. As he spoke all eyes were bent on the ground. They could not face the horror of the other eyes.
Pringle was obliged to sit on the sofa to control the trembling of his limbs. The others stood—Macfarlane, Colina, and Strange near the door—Ambrose facing them from in front of the desk.
"You will remember," Strange began collectedly, "it was I who advised that this man should be admitted to the house. I thought we could watch him better from the inside. I have never ceased to watch him from that moment.
"When you all turned in and I was left at the side door I kept my eye on this room. The last time I looked in I saw that he had disappeared. He had slipped so softly down the hall I had not heard anything.
"I instantly thought of danger to those up-stairs, and crept up as quickly as I could without making any sound. I found the door of Mr. Gaviller's room closed. I knew Miss Colina had left it open. I opened it softly, and saw Doane on the bed with his hands at Mr. Gaviller's throat."
A shuddering breath escaped from Colina. The little parson moaned.
"He sprang at me," Strange went on. "We rolled on the ground. I called for help, and you all came. That is all."
Ambrose was staggered by the breed's satanic cleverness. After this his own story must sound like a pitiful imitation. He could never tell it now with the same assurance.
"Surely, surely they must know that a true man couldn't take it so coolly," he thought. But they were convinced; he could see it in their faces.
He felt as powerless as a dreamer in the grip of a nightmare.