Carlyle turned his head, too, and bellowed across his shoulder.
"Fer God's sake boys, hold up! He means hit!"
As the racket subsided, Stacy knelt, still covering his hostage and said briefly to Jerry, "Hook yore arm round my shoulders. I'll tote ye."
He came laboriously to his feet again with his clinging burden of bleeding freight,—and abruptly Kinnard Towers appeared in the other door. His voice was raised in a semblance of rage, corroborated by an anger so well-simulated that it made his face livid.
"What manner of hell's deviltry air all this?" he thundered. "Who attacked these men in my place? By God, I don't 'low ter hev my house turned into no murder den." His minions, acting on his orders, knew their chief too well to argue, and as they fell shamefacedly silent, Kinnard shouted to Bear Cat.
"Son, let me succor ye. He looks badly hurted."
"Succor, hell!" retorted Bear Cat grimly. "You an' me will talk later. Now ef any feller follers me, I aims ter kill this man ye hires ter do yore murderin'."
At the hitching-rack several horses still stood tethered. There was need for haste, for one fugitive was perhaps bleeding to death and the other was wounded and exhausted. Some of the scattered murderers might be already waiting, too, in the shadows of the thickets.
Then for the first time Bear Cat spoke to Henderson of the mission that had brought him there.
"Now ye've got ter git up an' ride ter Brother Fulkerson's house," he said, with a bitter curtness. "Ye're a-goin' ter be married ter-night."