Hell's Hatches

by Lewis R. Freeman

The Chief strode over to the limp corpse and turned it with his foot. "Who killed this hound?" he demanded angrily, regarding me suspiciously for the first time.

"Not I, Chief," I replied jauntily; "but can't you guess? You can see for yourself that he hasn't been shot—or clubbed—or poisoned. Well, then—look at that neck. Do you know of more than one man in these parts capable of snapping a bloodhound's spine between his thumb and forefinger?" (I added that little thumb-and-forefinger touch with malice aforethought, for I wanted to impress upon Harpool—for whatever it might be worth—that it was no old broken-down of a "Squid" Saunders that he was going to try to run to earth out there in the darkness.)

The Chief's honest eyes opened with amazement as the answer dawned upon him. "You don't mean the big Malay?" he ejaculated incredulously. "Why, he has been tending Allen like a sister for two days. Everyone in the hospital has been speaking about his devotion."

"No other," I answered. "Ranga came up from the hospital less than half an hour ago to get a shift of togs. Five minutes later that hound came tearing in through the back entrance and flew at his throat—right here in my studio. You see the result. That fellow can drop a horse with his fist—a dog is no more than a flea to him."

"I can hardly believe it," said the Chief, shaking his head; "but the fact remains that if the hound went for him, he's our man. I hope we won't have to shoot him.... But Rawdon will never stand by and see his dogs pinched out like that. This fellow was his best hound by a mile. Drive him crazy when he finds it's been dished. Gawd, that neck might have been run over by a steam tram! What in hell—"

A bedlam of howls and yells and savage oaths rising from the rear of the house at this juncture broke in upon the Chief and caused him to bolt on the double through the door of the corridor leading to the kitchen. The unearthly racket, with the rattle of pistol shots spattering through it, made me certain that Ranga had run afoul of the hunt at his first jump. Shuddering at the thought of the terrible fight that must ensue, I pushed on after Harpool, reaching the further end of the corridor just in time to catch his reeling form as he staggered back from a bullet that had burned his scalp the instant he opened the kitchen door. Astride the sill of a kicked-in window sat old Rawdon, his bearded face distorted with fury and pain, coughing, sneezing, cursing, and firing impartially at all parts of the long, low room. Under the sink, almost at Rawdon's feet but quite out of pistol range, crouched Suey, blinking blandly and rubbing his almond eyes. He it was who was the author of an unpremeditated diversion which was the only thing in the world that prevented Ranga being nabbed at the outset.

The late black-and-tan, in following Ranga's trail, had entered the kitchen by snapping his way through the light screen door. To prevent his lines being thus penetrated a second time, the foxy Celestial, when he heard the main pack rallying to the attack, closed and bolted the heavy outside door of his domain and, with a little surprise packet in his hand, took station beside the little swinging window above the sink. Waiting with true Oriental restraint till the clamouring enemy was compactly bunched upon the porch outside, Suey gently raised the screen and emptied the contents of a can of red pepper into their midst. The paprika appeared to have been pretty fairly divided between three of the most oncoming of the dogs and their equally forward master. The hounds quit for the night, then and there, but the old bushranger's fighting spirit urged him on to make the best stand he could with his automatic. Considering the way he was being racked with coughs and sneezes, and that he only blazed away at the creak of an opening door his streaming eyes could not locate, his shot that welcomed the Chief was by no means uncreditable. It cut a neat furrow through Harpool's stubby pompadour and even drew a drop or two of blood.

The Chief's fervent swearing stayed Rawdon's murderous hand just as he had finished fumbling a fresh clip of cartridges into his emptied "thirty-eight" and was about to start fusillading anew. Roaring mad as he was, his first thought was for the dogs. "Get a wet rag round the muzzles o' Dingo an' Jackaroo 'fore you let 'em inter this 'ell 'ole," he growled between sneezes. "Our bloke's somew'ere in this 'ere 'ouse," he went on, laving his smarting eyes at the water-tap of the sink above Suey's jack-knifed form. "Don't let 'im slope by the front door, Chief, now we've got 'im in 'is 'ole."

"Sloped already," snapped Harpool laconically, adding that most of the sloping had been done while Rawdon was setting his dogs on a "bally Chink cook." In a few terse sentences the Chief explained the way things stood, giving it as his opinion that their man would be trying to follow the stream right across the plantation and down through the belt of bush to the mangrove swamps. The loss of the big black-and-tan was so great a calamity for the old bushranger that it had the effect of sobering rather than further exciting him. His red rage burned white and flamed inwardly rather than outwardly. "I'll know 'ow to even up for 'im killin' Starlight w'en I gets that bloody wombat in a patch o' dry bush. Nice bit o' a torch that greasy 'ulk o' 'im'll make. Come along! We'll 'ave a better chance o' makin' a quick bag if we get 'im in sight 'fore the rain starts."

There were still left two dogs with undamaged "noses." Fearful that these, if they took the bridle-path down the right side of the creek, might pick up Ranga's trail where he would have left the stream at the pool, I made bold to suggest a plan calculated to carry them wide of that danger point. "Why don't you ford here," I said, "and push straight across the plantation to the end of the big loop the stream makes round the nigger village? Your man will be all of an hour making that point if he wades by the stream. You can make it through the cane in twenty minutes and be waiting there to bag him."