“Larks, eh, Wiggles?” Archibald said laughingly, as the dog dashed back to him with the news of most prodigious occurrences further along the road.
Wiggles leaped up at him joyously, then, lighting on all four feet, stiffened and listened to something behind them. A moment later, the man’s duller ears caught the sound of galloping hoofs. He stepped out of the road, wondering idly that so many riders should be out; and, as a dozen men swept by him, he peered curiously through the gloom. The night veiled the men’s faces and they passed too quickly for recognition; but as they went, a laugh and an oath from one of them gave him a clue. Lem Tollerton’s voice! It had been loud enough and insistent enough at the smithy that afternoon to fix itself in Archibald’s memory; and as he heard it again a suspicion leaped into his brain. What had brought Lem Tollerton and his crew down the Valley? Ezra? Conviction came on the heels of the suspicion. Ezra, of course. Just what the night riders meant to do with the man, he did not know. Lem had talked of tar and feathers; but men did not carry tar and feathers on horseback. Whipping, probably. Archibald remembered Mr. Neal’s story of the Jew peddler and winced at the thought. Perhaps Ezra deserved a thrashing; but there was a slender chance that he was the wrong man.
With a sudden tightening of the jaw that meant action, Archibald turned from the road and swung himself over the wall.
“Come on, Wiggles,” he called. There was a little ring of excitement in his voice. “Maybe we can beat them to it, by the short cut.”
Wiggles was willing—delighted. He did not know just what the new game was and it interfered with his hunting; but, since his master wanted to run, run they would, and the meadow turf was softer than the road and altogether life had become gloriously eventful. He raced along beside the running man, with occasional side steps, when provocation proved too strong, and scurrying haste to catch up after each lapse. Together, the two came to the wall bordering the Back Road, climbed it and found themselves within sight of Ezra Watts’ cottage, but, just as they dropped from the wall, the same riders who had passed them ten minutes before clattered by them again.
Archibald stood still for a moment or two to regain the breath he had lost in his dash across fields. When he ran down the road, the horsemen had already stopped before the cottage and one of them was pounding on the door.
“Come out of that before we smoke you out.” It was Lem Tollerton’s voice again and the profanity with which he elaborated his command was more eloquent than decent. The riders were all yelling now, accusing, cursing, threatening. Drunk, every one of them—Archibald realized it with a sinking of the heart. Reasoning with drunken men was fruitless business and he was one man against twelve. Ezra did not count. Still he pelted on, with Wiggles at his heels. As he joined the group before the cottage, the door opened and Ezra appeared in the doorway. His face was livid with fear, and the picture he made in the light of the dark lantern which one of the riders carried was not one to rouse sympathy. If ever a criminal, face to face with retribution, looked the part, the cringing wretch in the doorway looked it.
“What d’ye want?” he snarled, his little ferret eyes searching this way and that for a chance of escape.
“You,” Lem Tollerton answered tersely. He seized the shrinking figure, jerked it down the steps, and handed it over to two men with ropes in their hands. Then, stepping back among the mounted men, he took a heavy horsewhip from one of them.
Archibald waited no longer.