Before his panting, galloping haste brought him to the stockade he caught, above the confused pandemonium, a yell of: "Bear Cat Stacy! Git him! Git 'em both!"
"Good God!" he muttered between grinding teeth. "Good God, them fools air startin' ther war ergin! I've got ter stop hit!"
If Bear Cat fell within the four walls of that house to-morrow would dawn upon a country-side disrupted in open warfare. So Kinnard appeared in the door, his face distorted with an ashen fury and sought, too late, to assume again the rôle of pacifist and rescuer.
As Bear Cat had gone stumbling out, bearing his burden of wounded and misused humanity, two men started forward keyed for pursuit.
"We kin still git 'em from ther brush," hazarded one, but with a biting sarcasm the chieftain wheeled on the volunteer.
"Stand where ye're at, ye fool! Ye've done flung away ther chanst—an' plunged us all inter tribulation! Hain't I got no men thet hain't damned bunglers?"
He stood panting in a rage like hydrophobia.
"Thet Bear Cat, he hain't mortal noways!" whined a disheveled youth who nursed a limp arm. "I seed his chest square on my pistol sights, not two yards' distant, an' I shot two shoots thet hed a right ter be deadeners—but ther bullets jest bounced offen him. Ye kin bleed him a leetle, but ye kain't in no fashion kill him."
Kinnard Towers stood looking about the débris of the place where shattered bottles on the shelves and grotesque figures cluttering the floor bore testimony to the hurricane that had swept and wrecked it.
"Them fools war mortal enough," he disdainfully commented. "I reckon ye'd better take a tally an' see what kin be done fer 'em."