He walked lightly up to the door and put his hand out to knock——
“What’s that?” he said under his breath.
“You aint no account. Your old sorry daddy before you warn’t no account. He warn’t nothin’ but a cold black murderer. That’s what he wuz, an’ he died in the pen, ter boot! But you’re mine by law, an’ you’ve got to do as I say. You aint apayin’ fur the salt ’at goes in yer bread. Sick? Sick nothin’. Git outen that bed. I’ll let you know when ter go ter bed.”
Paul Waffington stood at the cabin door and heard it all. He swallowed down a great lump that came up in his throat, and his heart thumped against his breast loud and fast. He clinched his fists and shoved them deep down into his coat pockets, and listened again. His ears caught the begging cry and pleading of the girl as she lay upon her hard bunk.
“I’m so sick, daddy Jase. I’m so sick, daddy Jase. I can’t get up. I can’t get up, daddy Jase. Oh, my dear mamma, if you would only come back and take me away!” was the final cry that came so feebly from the feverish lips.
The old mountaineer’s voice grew louder and more furious, and then Paul Waffington heard distinctly the stroke——!!! The door flew open as if a bolt of lightning had struck it as Paul Waffington went through.
“Hold on there, Jase Dillenburger, hold on there! Don’t you strike her again, don’t, don’t, don’t you strike her again, I say. Yes, I know that you can kill me. You can shoot me on the spot. But, Jase Dillenburger, don’t you forget to calculate that if I come up missing I have two brothers back in the Kentucky valley that will hunt you down like the stealthy fox that you are. They will scour this continent for your shaggy head—aye, they will drag the sea for your bones. Don’t you strike—don’t, don’t. If I were not a gentleman and a Christian I would say to you, begone to your place, you imp of Satan, and I would punctuate it with this,” and he shot out his athletic fist like an iron shaft within an inch of old Jase Dillenburger’s nose and held it there, glaring into the beady-black eyes of his savage enemy without a tremor. For a moment they both stood glaring at each other. Then, quick as a flash, Paul Waffington flew to the bunk, snatched the sick girl in his arms and cleared the door, crouching as he went, expecting to be shot with old Jase’s deadly gun.
He evidently had judged his man aright. As he cleared the door old Jase reached for his gun, with which to bring down his man. But as the hammer of his gun came back, strong arms wound around him, steel bands snapped together over his wrists, and before he could collect his mind three men had their hands upon him, and the spokesman of the three was no other than the old fiddler himself.
“In the name of the President and the United States, I arrest you, Jason Dillenburger,” said the fiddler, at the same time exhibiting the badge of a United States revenue officer.
Ten minutes after the handcuffs had snapped together around the wrists of Jase Dillenburger Paul Waffington had placed Gena Filson between clean, white sheets on a bed in the home of Emeline Hobbs. The people of Blood Camp were stirred and seemed conscious of some great change taking place in some inexplainable way, hence it was but a few minutes until the little house of Emeline Hobbs was running over with frightened people.