“Yuh—he mauled her awful. She told me—take the gun and—see if ye was here. I put her on the bed—and I come a-runnin’. She’s hurt bad. Git to her.”
Douglas and Bill tensed. Ward straightened with a snap.
“More dirty work!” growled Ward, with a hard look at the dead man beyond. “We’d all better git up there. Say, Miss Oaks! How about bringin’ this Steve to your house? This ain’t a good place for him.”
“Oh, bring him, bring him! Poor mom! I’m a-goin’!”
She sped into the night. Ward moved swiftly after her.
“Bill, you and Hampton fetch him along,” he commanded. And he, too, was lost in the darkness.
Hastily Douglas gathered his blankets and threw them around Steve, who doggedly strove to stand on his own legs but could not. Deprived now of the vengeful force which had sustained him so long, he was utterly without strength. But his wasted frame was no burden at all to the muscles of the two strong men aiding him. And a moment later, bundled in warm woven wool, he was being borne rapidly along the road, his tortured chest enwrapped in the bulging arms of the man who had remorselessly hunted him, his legs upheld by the tall “furriner” who had stood by him ever since his return from prison walls. Before the three, the white beam of the gas-lamp lit up the road. Behind, stiffening in the blackness of the eerie house where at last he had entrapped himself, lay the creature whose venom would never more menace the dwellers in the Traps.
At the door of the Oaks house Ward met them. His face was grave.
“Put him on this here cot,” he quietly directed. “I’ve got the fire goin’ and some water on.” Lowering his voice and nodding toward an inner room where an oil lamp shone feebly, he added: “She’s in there. Can’t do anything for her. She’s all busted up inside. Hemorrhages. She won’t last till daybreak.”
“Talkin’ any?” hoarsely whispered Bill.