Then Conway acted quickly. He spoke a few words to the old nurse, and as she backed off into the nearby wood, he covered the retreat. To his relief he saw that the sheriff, now thoroughly ashamed, had hold of the prisoner and was helping her along.
In the edge of the wood he felt safe—with the trees at his back. And he took courage as he heard the sheriff say:
“If you kin hold 'em a little longer I'll soon have my buggy here and we'll beat 'em to the jail.”
But the mob guessed his plans, and the man who had been most insolent in the front of the mob—a long-haired, narrow-chested mountaineer—rushed up viciously.
Conway saw the gleam of his pistol as the man aimed and fired at the prisoner. Instinctively he struck at the weapon and the ball intended for the prisoner crushed spitefully into his left shoulder. He reeled and the grim light of an aroused Conway flashed in his eyes as he recovered himself, for a moment, shocked, blinded. Then he heard some one say, as he felt the blood trickling down his arm and hand:
“Marse Ned! Oh, an' for po' ole Zion! Don't risk yo' life—let 'em take me!”
Dimly he saw the mob rushing up; vaguely it came to him that it was kill or be killed. Vaguely, too, that it was the law—his law—and every other man's law—against lawlessness. Hazily, that he was the law—its representative, its defender, and then clear as the blue barrel in his hand,—all the dimness and uncertainty gone,—it came to him, that thing that made him say: “I am a Conway again!”
Then his pistol leaped from the shadow by his side to the gray light in front, and the man who had fired and was again taking aim at the old woman died in his tracks with his mouth twisted forever into the shape of an unspoken curse.
It was enough. Stricken, paralyzed, they fell back before such courage—and Conway found himself backing off into the woods, covering the retreat of the prisoner. Then afterward he felt the motion of buggy wheels, and of a galloping drive, and the jail, and he in the sheriff's room, the old prisoner safe for the time.