Then he turned quickly and followed Boy. Daft Davie had already vanished in the darkness.
CHAPTER XXIV
The Night Attack
The men plunged through the timber toward the settlement. The ground was soft with snow now and the darkness was so dense that only their unerring sense of directions made progress at all possible.
“Bill,” panted Boy, “it’s likely Hallibut and his gang.”
“Likely. But they’ll reckon with us now,” fumed Paisley; “that is, if we’re not too late,” he added in his throat.
A rifle shot rang out on the night and the men quickened their pace.
“That’s at our place, all right,” groaned Boy.
Paisley did not reply. In his heart was a great fear that they would be too late to lend succor to the man and helpless women in the McTavish home. At their fastest they could but make slow progress through the thick timber, and several times were they brought up short and breathless by coming in violent contact with trees. It was an agonizing half-hour to both, this frenzied rush through a forest in pitch darkness. When the timber grew sparser and the footing better they bounded on, crashing through thick second-growth groves and leaping white patches of open, their goal the log-house where danger menaced loved ones. As they emerged into the wide clearing the clouds above them parted and the starlight showed a number of forms creeping toward the cover of the wood.
“Come,” whispered Boy. But Paisley, sinking on one knee behind him, leveled his long rifle.
“May this bullet go true to the leader of the dogs,” he muttered.