Henry Colton followed his brother’s advice, for he heard his affrighted wife calling his name in anxious tones from the upper half-story, that answered for sleeping apartments. A true woman of the border, she felt safe on seeing him unhurt, and stilling the child, she hastily dressed and followed her husband to the lower floor.
“Mary, this is no place for you,” murmured Henry as she glided to his side. “Go and stay with Tommy. There may be danger here.”
“No more to me than to you, Henry. I can load your weapons for you, if you have not time. No—I will not go. Tommy is safe up stairs, and my place is here beside you.”
“Let her stay, Henry. It will show me what I have to make amends for. Mary,” added Jack, his voice sounding husky, “while I have time, let me pray your forgiveness. I was drunk and half crazy, or I would have known better than to have insulted you. You will try and forget my words?”
“Yes—and we will be true brother and sister after this. You can not guess how deeply it hurt me, knowing that I had caused hard feelings between you and Henry.”
“He was right—it was my fault. But I’ll make amends, if my life is spared.”
His brother understood this last remark though Mary did not, for Jack had, in a few hasty words, told him all. How, when driven from his home by his only brother, he had fallen into the tempter’s snare, and become one of Jasper Morton’s “Night Hawks.” He told him too of the death-doom sworn by the outlaws, and that while one of the Night Hawks lived, neither would be safe from danger. It was this thought that clouded both their brows.
Henry Colton marveled greatly that no attack had been made, though full quarter of an hour had elapsed since the fall of Thompson, but a word from Jack explained this. The Night Hawks, busy plundering the stables and corral, no doubt fancied that the death-cry proceeded from the settler, and that the chosen executioner had done his work well. But they would soon discover the truth, and then—
“Ha! it’s coming now!” muttered Jack Colton, in a low, strained tone, as a peculiar whistle came faintly to their ears. “That’s Morton’s signal to Thompson.”
“Stand in this corner, Mary, out of range. We must show the devils no mercy now, and remember that the more we lay out to-night, the less we will have to fight in the future,” sternly added the settler.