“Good!” ejaculated Thatch, his form straightening.
“They’ll swear that they came and told me and that we were about to go out and search for you and the murderer, when you came running here, chased by the scoundrel.”
“Hold on!” spluttered Thatch. “What’s that ’bout him tryin’ to ketch me? Of course he didn’t ketch me, did he?”
“Yes!” softly cried Polcher, darting his body half out the window to secure room for knife-play.
It was over before Jackson dreamed of what the finale was to be. With a low groan the old man fell to the ground, and the tavern-keeper’s figure was drawn inside the window like some monstrous spider retiring to its lair.
With a wild shout of rage Jackson leaped to his feet and discharged his rifle into the room a fraction of a second after Polcher had dropped below the sill. The report had hardly jarred the night calm before the landlord was raising his head to glimpse the ranger’s distorted visage almost at the window. Darting to the door opening into the tap-room, Polcher threw it back and screamed:
“Help! Help! Surround the building! Jackson, the ranger, just killed Old Thatch in the garden! Jackson killed an Indian. Thatch saw him and he followed the old man here to stop his telling me! Back of the building and head him off if he takes to the woods!”
Nonplussed, incapable of intelligent thinking for a moment, Jackson stood with empty gun while Polcher shouted his terrible accusations. Then came the rush of swift feet, and the young Virginian knew Polcher’s creatures had been kept in waiting for just such work. He knew Thatch would have been killed in any event and the alarm given that Kirk Jackson had done for him.
Retreating from the garden, he worked his way toward the court-house, only to observe lights springing up in the nearest cabins, the inmates being alarmed by the rifle-shot and the loud cries of Polcher and his men. Jackson dodged one of the tavern posse and escaped discovery by a hair-breadth. The court-house was dark, Sevier had not returned. To wait for him and withstand the temper of Polcher’s creatures was out of the question. At the midday meal Stetson had repeated his offer of a horse, urging him to select an animal from the log corral any time.
Five minutes after escaping the garden he was well down the trail back of the court-house and leading a horse from the pen.